The big fear for those of us who don’t like Riley on staff is that he will infect Jonathan Smith. The counter we hear is that Smith trained under Chris Petersen, so he will be more like Petersen. Key word being “trained”, past tense.

There is good reason for the Cassandra’s concerns. In general, you become like the people you hang around. If you hang around low-life druggies then the odds of a happy life decrease, and the odds of doing drugs increase; it doesn’t really matter who you hung around the five years before. There are many examples of this that you can probably think of from your own lives, where someone near to you had an impact. I can even think how the music I listen to influences my guitar playing. If I go through a phase where I listen to Jimi Hendrix my playing becomes more bluesy and wild, even if I’m not really trying to do that. If I listen to jazz I’m playing more staccato, more slides, more chromatic, and more 7th chords. Am I trying to? Nope, but it’s in my ear all day, so it comes out on the guitar.

This is the fear with Smith. With Riley around and in his ear all day, he is going to forget Chris Petersen’s influence. The saying, “out of sight, out of mind” exists for a reason. There is a theory that you’re the average of the 5 people you hang around most. These ideas are debated in psychology circles, and there are valid counters, so just look it up if you’re interested in it.

Jonathan Smith thinks highly of Riley and either he, the AD, and/or the boosters wanted Riley around as a crutch to guide Smith. So, Riley will likely be one of the top 5 coaches around Smith. My concern and question is this: how long before the Riley zombie drains all the Chris Petersen blood out of Smith? We’ll have to wait and see, but that he’s saying “neat deal” and “golly” in interviews doesn’t suggest the long end of the timeline.

What I liked about the Smith hire is he seemed intelligent, focused, and seemed to want to run a program like Chris Petersen. Keep an eye out for signs that’s breaking down; that he’s instead taking on traits of Riley and Corvallis’/the media’s low expectations. I see some of this already, mostly in his verbiage. We’ll see. Optimism on this blog, and I think the fanbase at large, would be higher were Riley not around.