Can Riley and staff keep up with the new wave of Pac-12 coaches?

On a whole, this season has been dismal for the conference, what with a 6-6 UCLA team being the best the South has to offer (with SC’s probation) and the fact that, for some teams, it looked hopeless that they would ever field a credible contender in the near future.

But both the ’Cats and Cougs dramatically improved their fortunes by hiring coaches previously unavailable to teams mired in the lower end of the Pac 10 Conference. My, what $21 Million will buy! Suddenly 2 of the brightest offensive minds are added to a conference that already has CK in Eugene. And things will only continue to improve.

Keep up or drown.

While this is extremely positive for the Pacific Conference, for a Beaver fan though, the implications are terrifying.

OSU’s braintrust decided to keep Mike Riley. I would approve of that decision if there was talk coming out of Corvallis from both Riley and the AD’s office about how changes are necessary to bring this program back to a competitive level. But I (maybe I missed it) have heard nothing at all from De Carolis – no word that expectations have not been met and he’s expecting improvement in 2012, and nothing from MR – no word that he’s shaking up his staff or bringing in anyone with new ideas.

There seems to be no sense of URGENCY coming out of Corvallis.

And that placid, ’don’t worry, be happy!’ attitude is going to spell a nightmare for the fans. No longer will WSU and Arizona be games that should be competitive for Riley. Instead, those schools will, in the near future, field teams that are suddenly competitive with the Ducks! Which is terrific for those of us who love college football. There are going to be some terrific football games on the horizon. I just don’t see any of them involving Oregon State.

Falling behind now will only make it that much more difficult to catch back up later. The Pac 10 for the last few seasons and now this year’s Pac 12 has seen some truly bad football teams. 16% of the Conference’s teams have now improved their product. Should UCLA and ASU luck into hiring good coaches (I wouldn’t hold my breath for either of them – both have incompetent AD’s at the helm) 33% of the Conference will be greatly improved. And what is OSU’s plan to keep up? I’m afraid no one really has an answer.

I hope I’m wrong about OSU’s fortunes going forward.

as well as Kelly at UofO, Sarkisian at UW, and Kiffen at USC, have all been aimed at increased speed, quickness (not the same, but related), AND creativity. I’d even categorize Embree at Colorado this way, though they have a long way to go with their personnel. But at least they have a vision and direction.

This is why I’m especially concerned about Riley’s contention that a different direction with his staff isn’t needed. It is true that they have won with the current coordinators, and their systems. And no, Mark Banker didn’t “forget” how to coach. But he’s playing a dramatically different game now.

A key issue is that Banker’s defensive scheme, when successful, was facing far more 3 and 4 man routes, and far fewer 5 man routes. Teams kept a TE and an RB in to block with some regularity, but they now have a different breed of offensive linemen, and a different timetable for throws, which allow more receivers into the pattern.

The fastest player on the opposing offense was usually at receiver, and that too has changed. Consider the speed of backs currently. A defense that used to work because the linebackers could all run with the opponents’ running backs is no longer a possibility, even if the Beavers are more lucky at recruiting.

You could afford to force backs out away from their blockers when you could catch them. It made sense to get backs away from their blockers. As we have seen, if you “force” LaMichael James, Isi Sofele, John White IV, or Chris Polk, and backs of their ilk to come, out into the open, you won’t catch them, and explosion plays will result.

And the mobility of quarterbacks, both the running ones, and the ones who merely move to throw, or run only when necessary, is dramatically improved. All defenses have an area that can be exploited, and Banker’s scheme always allowed open space for a mobile quarterback. But when dealing with the likes of Ryan Leaf, Nate Longshore, and Carson Palmer, there was essentially no risk of that being exploited. Flushing those guys made sense if you could do it. Push Darron Thomas, Andrew Luck, Kellen Moore (non-conference opponents count equally with conference ones since wins and losses all count), or even a Jeff Tuel out into the open and they will destroy any secondary.

An offense that tends to be one dimensional, OR fails to convert a high percentage of opportunities, is in more trouble now than before as well. With opponents’ offenses being more productive than ever, and more than ever being able to score from anywhere, even a top defense will not always get stops.

An offense can not miss field goals, or settle for them very often. It used to be a short run or pass on third down could still be a sound strategy, as a team could play field position, and use 2-3 possessions to piece together a score. And play time of possession. As we have repeatedly seen, offenses that are both faster and faster paced can get more productivity out of less time. The principals that used to work for Danny Langsdorf no longer do, and not because Danny is doing anything so much different, never mind worse. Its that the opponents are doing something very different, putting new, more challenging requirements on his offense.

These are the reasons why schemes as well as personnel have to change, to meet different challenges. So far, there has been no evidence that either Banker or Langsdorf can bring them selves to dramatically change what they are trying to do. Sure, Langsdorf has turned from a sometimes run-oriented oc to a pass-happy one, but look at the overall distribution of the passes, and what they are meant to accomplish. And consider the impact of generally improved speed of opponents defenses.

Riley has shown he still believes doing a better job of what they are trying to do would make the difference. An objective look at how the game is being played compared to how many of Oregon St.’s opponents were approaching the game not so long ago reveals that the circumstances have changed, and that requires a different response, not just a better one of the same type.

• In eleven years of trying, Riley has not led a team to a first-place conference finish, to the Rose Bowl, or to a BCS bowl.
• Five of the eleven were losing seasons overall. (Bottom line: 72-63.)
• Five of the eleven were losing seasons in the conference. (And one was 4-4, so he’s had only five winning Pac seasons! Bottom line: 46-47.)

• Some of those glorious winning seasons that fans remember so fondly don’t seem all that glorious in retrospect — a 7-5, with a win in the Insight Bowl, a couple of 8-5s, with a win and a loss in the Las Vegas Bowl. Whoop-de-doo!
• Riley’s best three years, 2006-2008, resulted in two 9-5s and a 10-4, with two Sun Bowl wins and one Emerald Bowl win. At the end of those three seasons, out of eleven campaigns, Riley’s teams were ranked in the top 25 by one poll or another.

So, if the competition were standing still, the best we could expect from Riley in future years is three seasons out of every eleven with no more than four losses, with three victories in lower-tier bowls, and with three end-of-season top 25 rankings. The other eight seasons out of eleven? Not as much fun. Agonizing at times.

And, of course, the competition is not standing still. They’re replacing coaches, retooling offensive and defensive schemes, recruiting players who can execute those schemes. It’s going to be a lot tougher for Riley to string together three 9-5 or 10-4 seasons in the decade to come, much less to do even better, to finally win a Pac championship and play in the Rose Bowl or another BCS bowl.

Frankly, I don’t have any reason to believe that will happen. Because Riley is stuck in the past, comfortable with his routines, loyal to a fault, accepting of mediocrity, lacking in the ambition, drive, and creativity of his youth. And before you charge me with age discrimination, please understand that compared to me, Riley is a young man. It’s just that he no longer acts like one.