Riley Makes Changes to Seem “Proactive”
See Cliff's article, mentioning how Riley has once again made changes to practice this year.
Remember last year when Riley made changes, and fans were like, "Hey, he's adjusting to the modern game, yada yada"? How did that turn out?
The reality is that Riley is making changes just to look proactive. I wrote this comment on Cliff's blog:
Riley makes a change that doesn’t work every year just to look like he’s doing something pro-active. This will fail, too, because he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. Success starts with recruiting. Riley can’t recruit. He also can’t even put the best players on the field (#28, Pankey, R. Robinson, etc).
I think that sums it up. New year + same philosophy hidden behind "new changes" + same head coach = same capped results. I'll stop criticizing when he puts the 11 best players on the field, has an ideology change, understands the importance (and value) of recruiting talent vs "coaching up", etc. Slowing down practice to focus on detail a year after he thought speeding up practice because he believed reps were important doesn't scream "man with a refined football philosophy."
Now granted, I've been harping that his teams have no attention to detail, so that part is good, but the point is that Riley is all over the map, and it comes off as change for the sake of change, to rally his supporters by suggesting that with the "changes" this year it's going to be different, or to have tangible effort to show Bob D when they sit down at season's end. You're already seeing the media buy in: (paraphrasing) "Riley is changing around practice, and he looks invigorated!" These people have to sell content. Riley can't even put the best players on the field, and the media is too dumb to realize that and question it, yet I'm supposed to believe their reports? Give me a freaking break. This is the same coach pulling the same "I'm a nice guy who's adapting to modern football" illusion he's been pulling for the past three years–ever since the Pac got stronger and exposed him for what he's always been–a mediocre, aging coach.