My Beaver Blog

Year three of Riley II will soon be behind us. First a disclaimer. There was no bigger fan of DE than me and I have been an admitted skeptic of OSU's decision to bring Riley back for a second stint. That said, I have attended every home game of the Riley II era and cheered my team on just the same. With that, here are my thoughts on his work to date.

Recruiting (Grade: B)
Admittedly Riley is at a disadvantage here recruiting to Corvallis and against the likes of SC, UCLA, nike U and the Arizona schools. That said he is continuously able to land the top talent out of Oregon (hey, it worked for the baseball team) and has landed some key guys from Hawaii. (How do I get the Hawaii recruiting gig?). According to those who judge like rivals.com our recruiting classes have improved in quality but still languish towards the bottom of the Pac -10. Not sure there is much a head coach can do to improve this. He doesn’t control the weather or the city of Corvallis. We will continue to depend on the diamonds in the rough (Jonathan Smith, Mike Hass, etc.) in order to be successful. As a result sometimes we'll get hits, other times we'll strike out. This is one area where Riley's demeanor probably plays well for him. This is a guy that is easy for parents to like and to trust with their kid for the next 5 years. Or so you would think, see team leadership below.

Play calling (Grade: C-)
Where do I start. He can’t take all the blame because clearly execution has a lot to do with this, but there have been some ridiculous choices made in this department this year. Need proof, watch the last 5 minutes of the UA game and tell me this isn't a glaring weakness of our team. Several times a game we are scrambling to get plays off before the play clock expires often because the play doesn’t get in to MM in a timely manner. Indecision? Confusion? Whatever it is it isn’t good. Have a plan. Know what you do well and go do it. Trust in the kids and put them in a position to succeed. Make sure to protect them from themselves (i.e. MM late in the UA game after already throwing 4 picks). I've never stood on the sideline at this level so I'm sure there's more to it then there appears. But if I can pick up on trends and patterns from watching a few games from row 5, don’t you think an experienced coach pouring over filmsfor hours can do the same thing.

In game adjustments (Grade: D)
This is easy, do we seem to get better over the course of a game? NO. Why? We are not making the proper adjustments. If games lasted only a quarter we would be solid, unfortunately there are four. Here are some opening drive summaries from Beaver games this year. As you'll see getting a good start if often not our problem.

Opp______ Drive Duration____ Result
L'Ville .................4:55..................... 7
WSU ..................3:50..................... 7
UCLA .................1:37..................... 7
Zona ...................2:50.................... 3
Tree ....................1:24.................... 7

While the Beavs got off to quick efficient starts in all these games, they ended up losing 4 of these 5 with the offense often sputtering after these quick starts. Why? Are other teams adjusting to what we are doing? Do we go away from what is being successful. Hard to tell. But what I do know is that this happens way to much. That and for all this offensive prowess, the #1 receiver by yards in the county (Hass), the #6 by yards per game running back in the country (Bernard), a Groza finalist for the countries best kicker (Serna) and yet the Beavs have only scored more than 30 points against a D1-A opponent once all season. That being the 44 they posted in that wild game against WSU. And don’t blame this on the OC, remember Riley calls the plays.

And wasn't he a defensive coach for the Saints prior to his second stint with the Beavs? Then how come we are 10 weeks into the season and have been burned in the same manner since week 2. Maybe he's just too stubborn. I'd like to think putting the kids in a position to succeed is more important than sticking to his scheme. It's not about style points coach, it's about winning.

Team leadership (Grade: D)
Let's see sheep stealing, the taxi driver pot incident, assault and a team captain failing to make grades. These things don’t make me feel good about my team or the University. Add that to the corny Hip Hip Hooray cheers and complete lack of discipline rearing its ugly head on the field again and it seems to me the Beavs are not headed in the right direction. Beavernation let me introduce you to Mr Mediocrity. Wanting to avoid a repeat of the Pettibone years, then you have the right guy. Want a repeat of the Fiesta Bowl year, ain't gonna happen. Riley does not convey the right attitude to make this team a Pac-10 champion. He will beat the teams he supposed to, most of the time (see UA and Stanford this year) and lose the games he is supposed to most of the time. As noted in recruiting we are not always going to have the top talent so we will be only be favored in about half our games in each. Looking for 6-6, then Riley is your guy. He is not able to coach a team up or inspire a team to be greater than they are. That's just not him and that's OK if you are average Joe. But that's not what I'm looking for in my football coach. At this level it is about the little things. Act with conviction and demand perfection from the team. Riley does neither and it has shown nearly every Saturday this fall.

# posted by BeaverJoe : 3:52 PM