To celebrate, let's dig into the archive for this gem, from 2010:
Will the current batch of offensive linemen have their starting roles challenged, or will they be handed the starting jobs based on experience? It is a must that, based on on-the-field performance, they have their starting jobs yanked. Riley is extremely frustrating in this regard, starting experienced garbage over unproven talent time and time again. By the halfway mark sometimes he figures it out, but this year he did not. And then fans wonder why we have slow starts. Depth is one reason, but not having the right players on the field until game five is another. My fear is that next year the walk-ons (who are all juniors) will go into camp as the favorites to win their positions, and that is simply inexcusable. I do not want to waste another season sifting through garbage players from lazy recruiting classes. We did this with Pankey, and we're doing it with the basketball team. That is not fair; we are all getting older and wasting seasons begging for seniors to graduate does nobody any good.
http://angrybeavs.com/athletics/4159
Fast forward a couple years, insert Robinson for Pankey. Rinse, repeat.
Sometimes I feel like the guy in 1971 who said people should hold their silver coins. He was just stating the obvious. Everyone laughed at him at the time, but after many years he's been proven right. I guess my point is that I've been writing this shit since 2005 (on other forums), and now those people are finally coming around to reality. Time is interesting for many reasons, but in this context, because as it passes it removes anomalies and puts things in their clear and rightful place.
1971 silver?
Are you talking about the Hunt’s? Why do we seem to always end up talking about Birchers who like to hoard shiny things?
When people hoard metals, their prices rise. That’s what happens every time. Even unintended hoarding like collectors stashing the 1964 half dollar causes prices to fly. And nobody seems to understand that 90% of the short contracts (even now) are held by only a handful of traders. And by a handful, I really mean only four or five traders.
Yet we’re supposed to buy their hype when they get their talking heads to scare us into their paranoid whacko conspiracy theories?
I don’t even think they believe that garbage themselves. It’s just a scare tool they can use to leverage money from the pockets of the mushy minds who believe them.
I don’t think you’re talking about the Hunts, though they were the ones driving the silver market at that time… and became the largest single debtors in this nation’s history as a result… and eventually were bailed out by the Wall Street bankers they so professed to hate… the same bankers whose policies they claimed caused them to hoard silver in the first place.
Fucking hypocrites!
And here I am listening to Peter Schiff talk about taxes without apportionment being unconstitutional? Sometimes I wonder if Schiff just likes to hear himself talk. He’s correct about the ends, but he’s just a moron about the means.
Change is painfully slow with this program, a point that has been made many times.
As I am now begining preparation for the 2012 tailgating season, I must also prepare to hang with many of the old timers who donate significant amounts to BASF. It is these people that wear the 3 decade losing streak as a badge of honor and pride.
After any given loss you will hear things like, “we’ve had tickets for 32 years, you kids don’t know what it’s like to sit through 20+ years of losing, rooting for dreadful team after dreadful team. Riley is great, you’re allowed to have some ups and downs.” Yadda yadda yadda.
It is hard to argue with people that are so set in stone. I am down to just try to make one, very solid point against them, otherwise you end up arguing in circles.
Example: The most heard excuse for 2011 was having to play so many freshmen. “Riley can’t control injuries or Quizz bolting for the NFL.”
A big problem is that many of these huge donors don’t really care about on field performance, period. They are proud of their school and will donate and support every year until they are dead.
As I’ve said many times, I did not attend OSU so I often have to wonder what cultural experiences I missed. What kind of bond is built with your alma mater? Is it sacrilege to seriously, publicly, and financially criticise your school for below average football performance?
Sorry, end of chapter one.
Jason, you made true and good points relating to older Beaver fans who lived with losing for so many years. But remember they also lived through the good times and experiences spun off from our presence at the Fiesta Bowl……..so they also must realize that it is so much better when our football program is a winner.
There are two “cancers” relating to OSU’s football. The first is within the confines of the football program itself. The cancerous tumors are BDC and Mike Riley. Their main concern now is survival of themselves, not the program. For coaching staff and players to work, train and just be part of a “failure” environment speaks for itself. When you have a winning or at least a top competitive program there is energy, electricity, motivation, close and positive bonding and most of all a high sense of pride. Because of this losing or failured leadership by the AD and most of all MR, the atmosphere within the football program is that of frustration, despair and hopelessness. You have to remember that within the program players, coaching staff and others CAN NOT say anything negative about its leadership without receiving a negative and possibly severe consequences.
The second “cancer” is within Beaver Nation itself. It consists of those alumni, boosters, and fans who for one reason or another can live with failure and losing football games. These members do not help the cause at all. Either they know very little about football, what takes place on the field or why we have a losing program. When I watch a football game (and I record as many as I can) I look what is happening on the field, on the sideline, what our game plan is, how adjustments are or are not made, etc. While watching a game, I really don’t care about the score as much as how and why we are doing things. Sadly Beaver Nation does not have any power at all. Beaver Nation is a divided entity fighting and bickering among itself. This is why I say and admire the Power among the Ducks fan base because they would not tolerate what we have faced over the last few years.
Angry makes good point on why our football team takes so long to get up to speed at the beginning of each season. Another reason that I see is this. Mike Riley uses a limited play book at the beginning of the season because he does not feel players are able to execute more plays correctly. If you notice in past seasons, more and more plays are added as the season progresses. This is a sign of Riley’s lack of leadership as head coach. Lets take our close neighbor to the south, Chip Kelley. He and his coaching staff come up with a play book. He tells the players this is the playbook for the season starting with the very first game. You learn the playbook and you will be able to execute each and every play and be ready for the first game. Chip uses pre-season games (as other good head coaches do) to fine tune the plays and test others for future use. This is NOT the way MR works. He does not prepare his players to execute all the plays and do it by the first game of the season.
I don’t know if Riley has some secret weapon in the locker room we don’t know about but I, as a dedicated Beaver, do not look forward to the upcoming season. I dread what is going to happen. Without significant change taking place withing the OSU Athletic Department and head coaching position, I see only more failure and another Civil War loss……..# 4 in a row.
Why is it when I read your commentary I always picture this clip?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG7c6VYqoVU
FightingBeaver,
Great post & well said!
Actually, it will be five if, as we all suspect, UO wins the CW this year, but we get the point. I’m not a Riley apologist, feel as frustrated as everyone else in this forum, but do think that, looking at OSU from a long-term historical perspective, Riley is not getting his due. The recent tendency, to which I myself have fallen victim to, is to see Riley and his track record as a point of comparison, to Chip Kelly. Actually, Riley’s analogue to the program down south, isn’t Chip, it isn’t even Bellotti; it’s Rich Brooks. Brooks’ tenure there has many of the qualities that form the structure of Riley’s career. Let’s look at some comparables:
Rich Brooks, 17 years.
overall record, 91-109-4
never won 10 games
9-4 was best season
lost 3 of 4 bowl games
7 winning seasons
Brooks was oft criticized, which makes the naming of the field there in his honor somewhat ironic.
Mike Riley, head coach 11 years
overall record, 72-63
1 ten game winning season
best year, 10-4
won 5 of six bowl games
6 winning seasons
Thus, in this frame of analysis, UO is at least one generation ahead of OSU’s progression out of the depths of football futility. In the long run, Riley will be perceived as the man who built a floor upon which others will build.
The reason UO named the field after osu grad Rich Brooks is to match another Beaver grad, Thomas Autzen.
That is irony at its finest.
“The second “cancer” is within Beaver Nation itself. It consists of those alumni, boosters, and fans who for one reason or another can live with failure and losing football games. These members do not help the cause at all. Either they know very little about football, what takes place on the field or why we have a losing program. When I watch a football game (and I record as many as I can) I look what is happening on the field, on the sideline, what our game plan is, how adjustments are or are not made, etc. While watching a game, I really don’t care about the score as much as how and why we are doing things. Sadly Beaver Nation does not have any power at all. Beaver Nation is a divided entity fighting and bickering among itself. This is why I say and admire the Power among the Ducks fan base because they would not tolerate what we have faced over the last few years.”
look, just because you take the time to record as many games as you can and you proudly exclaim that you’re extremely knowledgeable about football (as if nobody else on this site is) doesn’t mean you’re above the rest of the fan base. neither does the fact that you’re not “willing to live with failure and losing games”. what does that even mean? doesn’t the fact that you’re still a fan after the past two seasons after so much failure and losing mean that you yourself are living with the same failures and losing that every other fan of oregon state football is? being pretentious and putting yourself above beaver nation (which you are apart of) by calling it a cancer to the program doesn’t “help the cause at all” either. there isn’t a god damn thing any of us do that can directly “help the cause” of the program, which i assume you mean to be winning games. that is unless you have a six figure donation you’ve been holding onto. you’re complaints about riley and the athletic department are completely fair, but to say that the fans are hindering the program’s success by being blindly supportive is just unwarranted.
http://youtu.be/EsCyC1dZiN8
There’s always time for a Jethro Tull break. Very nice post!
Well jack, this is what comes to mind when I read your comments………reminds me of a do nothing, know nothing Riley interview.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnBsLS_caf0&version=3&hl=en_US%5D
Oh snap!
I don’t know if it’s funnier how you fail or that you don’t even realize you fail.
You give rise to the voice in the pollyanna camp that we contrarians have no clue and just bellow in order to sate our overblown sense of melodrama. I don’t think you understand that I get lumped in with you precisely because of your inane ramblings. Those who do it are as lazy as you, but that doesn’t make either any less real in perception… or ridiculous in reality.
Since we’re on a video kick…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InS3Jjtpks4&sns=em
Fightingbeav, I’m not sure what you’re looking for in the interview that you didn’t get. He essentially runs through each positions performance in the Spring scrimmage and comments on what went well and what needs work, as well as how the team as a whole needs to improve. Maybe you can elaborate.
Hi bendbeaver, the reason I posted link to that particular video is this:
There was NO spring game. Something Beaver fans look forward to.
There was no indication of any changes taking place, I mean major changes we need.
Riley sound like everything is, in his words, hunkydory. Well it isn’t.
I’m surprised he didn’t put on chapstick during the interview.
Thanks for having me clear it up.
That does help clear it up. I’ve typically seen ‘major changes’ happen in a college football program when the coach is fired and a new one is brought in. The new coach has a plan, he sticks to it, maybe it brings wins, maybe it doesn’t, but they stick to their plan. It’s probably why so many have been hired and those same ones fired in the last few years.
Angry,
I wish other reporters would read your blog and report about the topics discussed on this site more frequently. Beaver Nation (like America) must wake up before its too late! OSU is on a downward destructive spiral, and must right the course soon! Mediocrity is like a disease that has creeped inside OSU athletics. Its time to find a cure, fast!
Really? OSU athletics?
I think you mean football. And I think you ignore some of the athletes on that team when you say such things.
There are a ton of questions. But why answer for them? That’s sillier than ignoring the questions in the first place.
It is true that I meant mostly with the foorball team. However the attitude of the athletic program, and the leadership/ direction must be adjusted. BDC fails to understand marketing, branding and creating excitement for the entire athletic program. Reser must be completed, the football locker room needs a major upgrade! Changes are happening, but they are so, slow. Only the diehard fans are still around, OSU must find a way to get the common fan in the seats of Reser and help support the program, or we won’t keep up.
Agree wholeheartedly. There are many areas where the football program in particular is missing the boat. All of OSU Athletics will benefit from stronger football. The marketing is poor and even with new branding expected it isn’t making a difference with recruits because our leadership is lacking. Completing Reser Phase 3 this decade needs to be a priority along with a confident coach who will fill it.
Most Crucial Aspects of a Head Coach:
http://beaverbyte.com
I still don’t understand what part of the wagon you are sitting at. Do you like a losing football program? Do you ever watch Riley on the side lines? Do you see the look on our players after they lose yet another game? Do you still think there is nothing major wrong with football and athletic program leadership? If you are not related to MR then it must me BDC. Either way, after this season, you might be standing all alone.
Jack,
It really is pretty simple. You’re either a member of Riley or BDC’s family, or you understand like all intelligent people do that Riley/BDC are the worst coach/AD combo in the history of college athletics, a fact that will become abundantly clear to you (if it is not already) when Riley manages to lose three more games than we even have on the schedule this upcoming season, giving the program a record setting (and seemingly impossible) negative win season. It is time to make clear what side you stand on. You can’t hide forever.
In the history of college athletics….now that might be a bit of an exageration.
They’re not even the worse in OSU history, sadly. But I understand frustration and hyperbole
Just a dig.
I think the typical summer slog, combined with the poor play of late, may have caused some of the rhetoric to spiral out of control, and off a cliff.
Unfortunately, it will probably just get worse over the next two months, as I assume the number of commits will remain low until there is actually some on the field success. Unless something remarkable happens in fall camp to get some people off the ledge.
Happy birthday. Three years old, so continued breast feeding is for the mom and not the child.
No cake and ice cream for Jack and Fighting. Never fails, some little shits always misbehave at a birthday party LOL.
I’ll try to be good, give me the cake and give jack the ice cream. Promise………..
happy birthday angrybeavs!