I also want to sort of touch on the comments I see on this board here and there about Riley being an "average" coach because of his record at OSU.
I'm not saying Riley is going to be Jimbo Fisher at Nebraska or anything, but for people to have a preconceived notion that Riley is an average coach because of his W/L record at a place like Oregon State is crazy. To me that sort of thinking is short sided, bias driven or flat out naive.
Let's just first bring up that he was first hired away by the NFL. Why would an NFL team hire a college coach if he was just average, doing an average job? Look at the history of college coaches who get hired by the NFL. The vast majority of them at the time of their hire were considered to be among the best coaches in college football.
Ok, Nebraska isn't the NFL and you don't want to hear that...well then why would USC (on two separate occasions), Alabama and UCLA have offered him their coaching gigs over the years if he were so average? Schools like USC and UCLA saw first-hand what he was able to accomplish in the Pac-12. If they wanted him, what do you make of that?
If Riley would have just parlayed his time at OSU toward a job at USC or Alabama, he would probably have a different reputation than what some give him now. The OSU job is a lot like a job at, say, Vanderbilt. James Franklin was just smart enough to move up to Penn State after his success there. Now he is viewed as one of the young up and coming coaches. Franklin, like Riley, took the same sort of vigor on the recruiting trail and a system that worked for him at Vandy and tag teamed that with Penn State's money, facilties, etc. The same thing Riley is doing. Had he stayed at Vandy, he would have surely experienced the peaks and valleys that Riley did at OSU.
I just hope the same people who fault Riley for the limitations at OSU, will do the reverse for Gary Anderson now that he is in that predicament. I hope they put Anderson's 19 wins at Wisconsin in perspective. Disregard his division title. Once he struggles at OSU, shouldn't we hear the same "average coach" cries? People who think he duplicates his Wisconsin success in Corvallis are going to be sorely mistaken. No chance he wins a conference or even division title. No way.
IMPO he was a great hire for OSU because he was at Utah State for a good while and knows the recruiting footprint. His ceiling though is going to be finishing 4th in the Pac-12....North that is. There is NO WAY he builds a consistent winner at OSU. He will leave as soon as he does good enough to get a better job. That's what a place like OSU is for. Anderson wanted the heck out of Wisky, otherwise he wouldn't have taken that job. Riley's loyalty hurt his reputation...to the casual or biased fan that is.