Offensively, I think that this will be the first year where Riley has the type of personnel that he believes it will take to make his offensive philosophy work. But, it will likely take those guys about 2 years on the field for things to click. I think the offense is going to see significant changes this year because of the shift in personnel, and rarely does a "new offense" click in year 1. That puts us at year 4 before I think we really see what a Riley offense is supposed to be. I do think that the last 2 years have been a square peg/round hole for TA and DL. It is nobody's fault. The only thing is whether MR got his system QB early enough. They essentially passed on recruiting a QB in their first class because there just wasn't enough time. You wonder if they should have gone after a JUCO QB earlier. Not trying to bash TA, it just is what it is. Same thing with WRs. Now, the quality of WRs recruited in this class is outstanding. But, the returning talent and experience are few. This is due to Bo's last class and MR's first class largely being busts at WR, and last year's haul just plain missed with Fitz. This year, it was mentioned on here numerous times that NU needed at least 4, likely 5 WRs in this class - they got 3. That is essentially 3 or 4 classes in a row where the WR numbers are lacking, which is yielding a lack of depth now. Those kinds of issues could hurt the development of the offense now that Riley has a couple system QB's ready to take the field. We desperately need this entire new WR class to develop quickly and contribute immediately. FWIW, I am not sure I am that impressed with Reggie Davis' recruiting or coaching so far. Don't get me wrong, I like Tre Bryant, Ozigbo, and Wilbon. But, I just wonder if guys like Ozigbo and Jaylin Bradley are the caliber of players that we need to elevate the position? I kind of wish that MR had retained Ron Brown. Personally, IMHO, Davis is next in line for the hot seat. The fact that NU is moving to a more pass-oriented offense, I just wonder if this lack of focus on the running game is starting to rub off on recruiting/coaching the position. Also, I will say that NU's offense was hit especially hard with the injury bug this year... which I think had as much to do with the offensive regression as did other factors.
I agree with Adam on the defensive side of the ball. FWIW, we did have some very nice DEs around 2009-2010 with guys like Pierre Allen. Yes, it is encouraging that MR is willing to pull the trigger on staff changes if he sees an issue. But, I think what Adam is getting at is that plenty of Husker fans questioned how smart it was to bring Banker along from OSU. Husker fans could see it from day one. But, it took MR 2 years to figure that out. Hindsight is 20/20, but you hope that MR's foresight is a little better than his track record so far on coaching hires. I will say that MR is making upgrades to his staff. But, will we say in 2 years that Davis' replacement should have been foreseen now? Same goes for coach Cav. Cav says and does the right things. Recruiting the OL has been decent. But, are we recruiting at a high enough level across the board on the OL, and are we seeing the development and toughness necessary? I'm not sold yet. (Getting a little off track with offense here). But, I think Adam is saying that MR probably should have hired a guy like Diaco on day 1 instead of waiting for 2 years. As Adam said, going from the 4-3 to the 3-4 is a big defensive change. As we saw in 2015, new defense = learning curve and drop in performance. 2016, or year 2, saw improvement because players finally bought in and had more time to learn the defense on an instinctual level. Because of Diaco, we are now back at year 1 for the D. We could easily see a regression by the D this year as they transition again to learning a new D. That's not a knock on Diaco. It just means that it will likely be year 4 before we see dramatic improvement by the D now.
Finally, I agree that Riley has NU in a better place mentally/culturally than they were at the end of Bo's tenure. But, something that I wondered about on day 1 of the MR era was would MR players have that physical/toughness edge that they had under Bo? I think most of us agreed that Bo recruited players that would run through a brick wall for him. (There were other issues, though.) But, as we saw this year, MR's team improved but they seemed to lack the fire, energy, and toughness. See the Iowa game. Yet, the blowout loss raised its head again. So, there are still issues with the culture/mentality. Maybe Diaco and Donte will help with that. Adam is right that there is no tangible evidence yet of overall improvement. MR still hasn't exceeded the results by Bo. But, I think most of us can see that there is momentum in the building blocks to success that are gaining steam. Recruiting is gaining a little steam, though there is still work to do to get over the hump and close on a few more of those high targets. Recruiting also doesn't seem to have completely solved the problem of a high value target flipping at the last minute with no backup plan. Happened last year with Fitz, happened this year with Calvin. Both years we just came up short at WR. Should NU have had a viable backup plan with a 3* WR or 2? I am not saying that you just add bodies to fill out a class, but you also don't want to see NU self-impose recruiting sanctions. We had a class of 20 and should have taken 23. I understand that when you shoot for the stars you are going to miss on some guys and that is part of the risk of shooting high, but then we need to do just a little better on closing. And, FWIW, Bo did go after the highly rated guys, but rarely was Bo able to generate interest (ie he couldn't get his foot in the door with most of those guys). MR and company are getting their foot in the door and generating interest, they just got to get a few more guys to bite. While MR hasn't shown tangible evidence of improvement over Bo, yet, I do think that there is tangible evidence of improvement from year 1 to year 2 in most areas: coaching upgrades, recruiting improvement, defensive improvement, organizational improvement. MR needs to continue to improve year over year and not stagnate at this level.
