Add me to the probably-very-long list of people who never saw this hire coming.
That’s not to say that I don’t think that Mike Reilly is a good football coach, because he definitely is, it’s more that Reilly’s name wasn’t mentioned in the same breath as the now-vacant head coaching gig in Lincoln, where Bo Pelini was fired in the week, after seven nine- or ten-win seasons, so I never gave him much thought.
I figured Reilly, an Oregon State man through and through, would remain with the school he loves until he was ready to retire – in a similar vein to Kirk Ferentz at Iowa and Pat Fitzgerald at Northwestern – simply because he’s never made mention of the fact that he wanted something more. Unlike most coaches in top-flight college football today, Reilly seemed to be perfectly happy where he was, working for the school he loved.
Reilly’s tenure in Corvallis was fourteen years over two stints, separated by a taste of the NFL, and during that time, he’s turned the Beavers into a program that is capable of contending for the Pac-12 Championship. Yes, this year’s 5-7 record was a disappointing one, but there have been many more bright spots than dark ones during Reilly's time leading OSU.
At best, this is a sideways move for Reilly, though. I mean, he’s moving from a middle-of-the-pack team in the Pac-12 to what’s a middle-of-the-road team in the Big Ten – despite what a Nebraska fan might tell you – rather than upward. If he were going to Michigan State or Ohio State, you could understand it.
With the way the conferences are trending, the Pac-12 rising and the Big Ten dropping, it could almost be a backwards move, unless he can somehow elevate the Cornhuskers to the same level as the Spartans and Buckeyes, the undisputed Big Ten powerhouses. I know I’ll probably be flamed by Nebraska fans as a result, but is the upside at Nebraska any greater than it was at Oregon State? Certainly, the pressure to win and win immediately is far greater in Lincoln than it ever was in Corvallis.
It feels a little like Chris Petersen moving from Boise State to Washington last year. Arguably, that was a step down, given the relative positioning and available talent, but Petersen had apparently always been after a head coaching gig at a traditional football powerhouse, and maybe Reilly is the same.
The state of Nebraska football, as it sits in December of 2014, is certainly an intriguing one. To my mind, they’re not going to recapture the glory days of Osborne and Devaney, and Reilly comes into Lincoln knowing why his predecessor was run out of town – no Big Ten titles or National Championships – so the standard has been set. The question is, can he elevate the program past where Pelini had it? At the very least, you imagine the school will be hoping for someone a little more personable
You wonder what sort of recruiting success Reilly might have? He’s been able to mine the west coast pretty well for talent during his time with Oregon State, and now he’ll have to tread different ground, unfamiliar ground, in order to stack his Nebraska teams with talent. It’s not exactly a state known for producing great talent, so Reilly will need to cast his net further afield to bring in the talent he’ll need.
For both Nebraska and Reilly, it’s a brave move, and it might end up working out well for both parties, but, for mine, it just doesn’t have the same home-run feel as, say, the Jim McElwain to Florida deal has. As much as Reilly managed to make Oregon State competitive, he really hasn’t been able to quite bring in enough recruits to really shake the top of the Pac-12 tree. Who’s to say he’ll have any more success in Nebraska? I hope he does, because Mike Reilly is one of the good guys in college football.
Now, about a FauxReilly Twitter account…
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