Nebraska AD Bill Moos said Monday that he won’t follow his colleagues at Tennessee and Florida by firing his head coach during the season.
“It’s not like I’ve got a coach to hire this afternoon at 3:30,” Moos said Monday, via ESPN. “Mike Riley deserves to finish the 2017 season. That’s how I operate.”
Moos is saying more here by what he doesn’t say. The question isn’t about whether Riley will lead Nebraska through the final two games of this failed 2017 season, but if he’ll stick around to lead them into 2018. And by stating that Riley will finish 2017 and nothing more, he’s strongly hinting -- and that may be an understatement -- that someone else will be in the head coach’s chair in 2018.
Moos conducted a football coaching search at his previous job as well. He allowed Paul Wulff to complete Washington State’s 2011 season -- the Cougars went 4-8 -- before hiring Mike Leach after the season.
Nebraska is 4-6 this season, and closes with No. 14 Penn State and No. 20 Iowa. If the Huskers lose either one of those games, the 2017 season will end 11 days from today.
And that may be the end of the 3-year Riley era in Lincoln, too.
