Bo Pelini was 67-27 as the head coach for the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team. Pelini also won 4 bowl games in his 7 years at the helm in Lincoln. He never won less than 9 games and never lost more than 4. He won 71% of his games as a head coach. When you compare that mark to Nick Saban’s 75% win percentage, you can’t help but wonder why Nebraska made the decision to relieve Pelini of his duties. Pelini was fired at the beggining of the week and college football fans have been wondering why and who will take over at Nebraska.
Enter Mike Riley. Hired by Nebraska earlier this week, Riley was most recently the head coach at Oregon State. While in Corvallis, Riley compiled a 93-80 record with the Beavers. That’s a winning percentage of 53%. Does anyone understand this? Nebraska fired a guy who showed he could win, for a guy who is barley above .500. The knock on Pelini is that he couldn’t win the big games. While its true he has struggled against ranked teams, his successor doesn’t exactly have a history of coming up big, save for a couple of wins over USC and Oregon over 14 years at the helm at Oregon State. No one yet knows if the gamble will pay off for the Cornhuskers, but we will find out in about 9 months.
