LINCOLN, Neb. – The Nice Guy takes his spot in a comfy chair in an outer office of a dormant super power. Around him are walls where paint has peeled, if only figuratively. The Last Guy made sure of that.
The Nice Guy knows he is taking over a brand that has taken 15 years and counting to turn around. The Last Guy gave it his best shot for almost half of those 15 before essentially lobbing the middle finger as he left town.
The Nice Guy has a career college winning percentage of .538. That isn't even close to the Last Guy (.710).
No matter what happens at Nebraska, Mike Riley, the Nice Guy, will inevitably be compared to Bo Pelini, the Last Guy.
"I heard that," Riley said, smiling as Wednesday's national signing day approached. "The point about that is, for us to know [it]."
They changed coaches again at Nebraska hoping to change fortunes. So far, Riley, 61, has reviewed well since he was named the surprising choice to replace Pelini on Dec. 5. Nebraska AD Shawn Eichorst swiftly and deftly targeted the man who once played defensive back for Bear Bryant.
There was a time not too long ago when Riley's name was circulated for every major job that opened up, including UCLA, Alabama and most recently USC. He was that good winning with less at Oregon State. But after 14 years in Corvallis, 27 years on the West Coast (including an NFL shot with the Chargers), Riley knows another Nebraska coaching change won't change the biggest thing.
Expectations.
Nebraska has been just sort of there this last decade and a half since its last conference title. Certainly not bad, but not good enough for its polite, patient but quietly demanding fans. The Nice Guy inherits a brand name powerful enough to get the Huskers a Big Ten invite 4 ½ years ago, but with an overall performance that hasn't measured up.
Especially when the program looked itself in the mirror.
"Someone said very well that Bo had a lot of forgettable wins and a lot of memorable losses," said Lorenzo Hicks, a defensive back who won a Big Eight title with Tom Osborne in 1988. "That's not the program we grew up with.
"It's been a long time."
So long that Mike Riley was coaching Ryan Leaf with the Chargers the last time Nebraska won a conference title. So long that the Huskers didn't so much as win their own division the year they played Miami in the Rose Bowl for the national championship (2001 season). So long that Bill Callahan is more punchline more than history in this town. So long that the only two coaches to win more games than Pelini at Nebraska are named Osborne and Devaney.
Riley has heard that too.
"The recruits here are wondering what's going to happen," he said. "The bad thing about all this stuff in our world, it [creates] a ton of uncertainty on young people that don't always get it."
Riley is here to put Husker minds at ease. The common thinking is, if he can overachieve at Oregon State (seventh in Pac-12 athletic budgets), he can thrive at Nebraska (top 11 percent in Division I).
They'll recruit primarily from a 500-mile radius. They'll dip into California and Texas because Riley is familiar. The Rodgers brothers (Jacquizz and James) put Oregon State on the map in Texas out of Lamar Consolidated near Houston.
"People lose sight of this," Riley explained. "You don't have to evaluate every kid in the state of Texas. If you go to Texas and get two guys it doesn't seem so overwhelming."
Jacquizz became one of the best backs in program history.
Riley and his staff also supposedly won't cuss a blue streak. The new coach described the first Nebraska players meeting as a "drive by." It was a whirlwind introduction. This was after Pelini had -- in equal parts -- loved up his players and blasted the administration in a going away meeting.
The first "win" is turning in his favor an entire roster that was recruited by Pelini.
"The second [meeting] was about, it's going to be different," Riley said. "I'm not trying to qualify that with 'better.' I'm going to do stuff differently than [Pelini] does … Everything we do has a ton of thought."
Sure, demeanor will be huge. That's a big part of why he is here but Riley knows if he is going to be successful, first he'll have to take over a winnable Big Ten West. Pelini took Nebraska to three conference championship games -- two in the Big 12 -- though the lingering memory in Lincoln is a 70-31 beatdown at the hands of Wisconsin in the 2012 Big Ten Championship.
"I think we feel at least periodically we need to be in the [national] conversation," Hicks said, "People have labeled our fans as spoiled fans. I don't think that's it. We can handle losing. We don't need to win the title every year. These last 15 years we haven't been in the conversation."
Nebraskans are looking forward to beating a wire-service ranked team for the first time since 2012. Riley's Oregon State teams famously upset USC in 2006 and 2008 but haven't beaten the Goliath down the road (Oregon) since 2007. The Beavers went to eight bowl games in his final 12 years. His final Oregon State team finished 5-7.
"We understand [expectations] had risen dramatically while I was at Oregon State," Riley said. "They were obviously ticked off at our [2014] season."
Riley is known as a quarterback maker, a position where Nebraska has been inconsistent lately. The Beavers' Sean Mannion led the nation in passing yards in 2013. Three of Riley's Oregon State quarterbacks have played in the NFL since 2003.
So far, there isn't a signal caller to be found in Nebraska’s top 30 class. Perhaps there shouldn't be. Returning starter Tommy Armstrong is backed up by walk-on Ryker Fyke and redshirt sophomore Johnny Stanton. Two other freshmen redshirted last season.
That first class is ranked fourth in the Big Ten behind Michigan State, Penn State and Ohio State. At the moment, it includes four early enrollees, 16 three-stars and three four-stars.
Walk-ons? They’re a big deal at Nebraska and Riley had a few good ones at Oregon State. Alexis Serna missed three extra points in a season-opening one-point loss at LSU in 2004. Serna was so upset he laid face-down in the locker room and cried. The next year he won the Lou Groza Award as the nation's best kicker, never missing another extra point.
Mike Hass was a forgotten receiver out of Portland with no big-time offers. In three seasons, he caught almost 4,000 yards worth of balls in Corvallis.
The Nice Guy is close to hiring a "glorified intern" -- maybe a former scout or coach who will oversee the walk-on program.
Riley hasn't done all of it in a while: Build a new staff. Re-recruit a portion of the class. Relocate. The last time was 2003 when he left the Saints for a second shot in Corvallis.
"I'm really interested in the first game," said Ryan Gunderson, director of player personnel and former Oregon State quarterback under Riley. "Even in our conference, you'd go to USC, the place was full and it was rocking. I was also down there when there were 50,000-60,000 people.
"Nebraska's always full. It's going to be different."
Different? Oregon State has five conference titles in its history (one outright). Nebraska is less than 20 years removed from winning three national championships in four years.
Different? The new coach fits in yoga each morning whether on the road or not.
"I was in Florida recruiting, I got to do it outside for two days," he said. "That was kind of neat this time of year."
Different? Riley's presence here might not be a reality unless Paul Chryst had signed off on it. Chryst is the former Pittsburgh coach who replaced Wisconsin's Gary Andersen, who left for Oregon State when Riley went to Nebraska.
Talk about a circle of life.
Chryst had worked with Eichorst when both were at Wisconsin from 2006-2011.
"I kind of had inside scoop on Shawn," Riley said. "Paul told me if you ever wanted to do something different this would be the guy to do it with."
It was a strange seating arrangement, then, at a recent basketball game to see Eichorst, Riley and Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman plopped down in the middle of the student section.
Strange and … different.
Bo Pelini has definitely left the building.
"Coach Pelini was one of those people you either hated him or you liked him," said Carlos Davis. "Obviously we liked him as a coach … He kind of had that scary look to him like you never wanted to make him mad. Coach Riley is just real easy going."
Carlos and his twin brother Khalil offer as much of an inside look at Riley's first recruiting class as there is. The three-star defensive linemen from Blue Springs (Mo.) High School are dual 6-foot-2, 270-pound studs who had to be re-recruited -- fast -- when Pelini left.
When Riley arrived at the school office, the twins thought he was a repairman who'd come to the fix the copier. He was that unassuming. But the recruiting road already had been paved.
Hicks is the twins’ uncle, brother to their father Carl Hicks. At a young age, the twins began making trips to Lincoln. Their jaws dropped when as youngsters they met Tom Osborne. They were impressed when all-Big Ten defensive end Randy Gregory stopped by during a recruiting visit. They know that Ndamukong Suh contributed $2 million to the strength and conditioning center that bears his name.
"Of course they understand expectations," said Tracy Davis, the twins mother. "The new staff promised us the same things as the old coaching staff. I feel like my boys will be safe there."
Carlos and Khalil are adopted. Not much is known about their birth parents except their natural mother may have been 6-foot-1. That helps explain why they blossomed from skinny ninth-grade sprinters to national-class throwers on Joe Cusack's Blue Springs state track champions.
Carlos had the longest discus throw in the nation last season, 212 feet, 5 inches. They'll pursue both sports at Nebraska.
"They don't have an enemy in the world except maybe somebody that plays them on Friday," Cusack said.
Perhaps Wednesday will be the turnaround. Perhaps Nebraska and its expectations have been damaged enough. It certainly doesn’t help that Carlos Davis showed up in the halls of Blue Springs recently, prone, in a cart better suited for transporting textbooks.
Turns out he recently dislocated an ankle playing hoops in PE. Should be healed in a few weeks. He had crutches but the cart was a quicker mode of transportation with an interviewer waiting.
That's nothing like the anticipation here on Wednesday and beyond.
"You have all these people telling you how good you can be," Khalil said. "But you don't really know until you get out there on the field."
