Mike Riley Signing Day Press Conference Transcribed

Opening Statement:

“We are all excited to be here on this day. There was a little drama today, it wouldn’t be signing day without a little bit of that. I’m extremely proud of this class and excited about the work that our staff has done. It was about a 60-day period we were involved in and I think there’s a lot of good that’s come out of that. Particularly, obviously the class. But also lots of thoughts about putting this thing philosophically together for the future. What do we really want to focus on, what’s the best method to get there, how are we going to divide this thing up, what is going to be the primary focus, and then other parts of it that go around with that. We are already three days into that discussion so that part of it has been good. I’m personally excited about signing day for another reason, and that is to get back with our football team. I’ve been to the morning runs this week, early in the morning with them just trying to learn the names of 120 guys that are out there. So I’m excited about that next phase coming up. This is a good class that started with the guys that were committed to Nebraska when we got here. I was impressed with the work that Bo’s (Pelini) staff did with these kids and really impressed by the film we saw and the people that we met in that next part of the process. That is an interesting place to come from because you know as one of the parents pointed out to me, their son had been committed for a while but then the other people that had been recruiting him, the families actually knew those coaches better than they knew us. So the neat thing about it is, the kids came to Nebraska. All we had to do if possible, was to introduce ourselves into the mix and see if we are the right fit for the kids. But I think that says a lot for this place and we’re proud to have kept most of those commitments. Then we went off into that world of guys that we had been recruiting that were going to be the right fit here and as we did that we evaluated what our needs were and the depth chart, tried to fit that in in the mean time. And then we found some new players on the recruiting trail. Some of that came from guys that were hired from other places like Hank Hughes, had some ideas. He had been recruiting some guys. Keith Williams had some ideas as he joined the staff. That part of it was all good. It would be, I would say a lot more organized as we go into the 2016 recruiting class. I thought this thing rounded out really well.”

 

On the five-day period in December when he locked in some major recruits

“We had to make an initial plan right on getting the job. Right when we could go out, what are we going to do here? The first thing that came to mind was there were three guys that were not only committed but they were mid-year enrollees. Avery Anderson, Aaron Williams, and Eric Lee. So those were guys that I had to see right of the bat because they only had a few weeks before they were supposed to be on campus. As I made my way from Avery and Eric to see Aaron, a good stop-over was the Davis twins (Carlos and Khalil). So I think that was a really good start. I was very impressed with the families, with the kids, and very excited after that week with the guys I got to meet. I actually squeezed in Stanley Morgan at the end of that week. So right off the bat we got that group of guys and I felt great about it.”

 

On what his sales pitch was for those guys he recruited

Well I think that the number one sales pitch to those guys is that they chose Nebraska. I think when you’re a player and you’re looking at a place to go to school, you’re looking at a fit. You’re looking at a fit athletically. “Do my skills match this place that I’m going to?” I think kids also, and especially parents who have input, also look at the big picture of going to college and what does this university have to offer. This is where Nebraska is off the charts. The resources for young men here, academic support, life skills, nutrition, just go down the line in all of those things and it is at a high, high level. So they’re joining a place that really knows what it is talking about when it is talking about student athletes and what you can accomplish here. That part of it, that is pretty easy.”

 

On if it was difficult to sell a place that you just got introduced to

“I was just introduced to Nebraska and I hadn’t been here very long. I couldn’t pretend that I knew everything about it because I didn’t. I did find out about these things that I was talking about as I went and as I did it longer and longer I became more excited about it. I really believe in the total development of a young person. Not just the football, we have to do it all. So when I see the resources we can surround our players with here, I think it is the best. I think that is fun to talk about, and the brand of Nebraska itself, that is the part that you don’t have to learn much about. Those of us that are in it, know history and this place has as good a history as any place in the country. That combination to me is easy.”

 

On his approach to fill positions

“The other part of the puzzle in recruiting is just what you said, you have to look at the positions that you need. After the commitment piece, our coaches and all of us put together had to look at the roster and say where do we need a fit? We have what we think are the numbers we want at each position and the 85 scholarships that are available. How many of each do we want in those spots? As we looked at the linebacker situation, it was pretty glaring that we needed some numbers there. So we went right after that. One of the hard parts about that is I don’t know that you want to recover at all in the first year. If you want twelve linebackers in your program and there is five, I don’t know that you necessarily have to fill it all but you have to head that way. So we’ll look again now at the end of spring practice and see what more numbers we need as we go forward.”

 

On the social media throughout this whole process

“Well I’m really big into the social media end of it personally (laughter). You don’t know me very well. I’ve got some great thinkers in our program that help me with it. There are some great ideas, and I call them great because the response that I get from all of these is very, very good. I think it is also good for the players you are recruiting, the families for information and connection but it is also good for our fans. I like the idea that we are fairly transparent. Fans have fun following along, I think we got great response from that. Our guys had fun putting it together so it was pretty good. I guess you could say my part in it is the messaging. Ryan Gunderson is very much involved in this. We’ve been together long enough that he knows what messages Nebraska football will send out to fans, to our recruits, to the parents, to our team and so as we get together we have a message that we want to pass along but we want to have fun with this thing too. I think that kids in general relate to that and it’s a great way for us to get out information and to connect with these people.”

 

On what it was like having Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh trying to get the same recruits

“That was fun. It’s interesting in that deal. I’ve got now two good friends that are coaching in the conference, Paul Chryst and Jim Harbaugh. I’ve been in all kinds of situations in my life as a coach. I even coached up against my dad in the Canadian league. So I’ve seen it all. What I always try to do is enjoy it, but we also always want to win. It’s going to be part of the scene for a while. Jim and Paul are really competitive, like many coaches are. I kind of go from that and I take a step back and just remember what we’re doing here. We’re talking about our school, our program, our state and what we’ve got, and we’ll take it up against anyone. But our focus isn’t the other guy, it’s about what we have. And I like doing that. We’re not going to be that team that worries about what they do or what they’ve got, we’re going to focus on who we are and what we do. We’ve got a great place here and I’ve got great people that surround this team. We’ve also got a great department that puts together those great resources that I mentioned earlier on this team. That’s it. We can go from there.”

 

On what he saw from defensive end DaiShon Neal

“Well as we reviewed the commitments, we were really impressed with all of them basically. Specifically the question about DaiShon Neal was pretty easy. You see this guy, he’s a really good player with a ton of potential. I really like the upside to this guy. I like the fact that we kept a couple of the guys in this state. Like I’ve said before, we really want to know this state well. And also this whole radius of the heartland deal that we’ve talked about, I really like the idea. With getting DaiShon and Michael Decker locally, it was a start to get to meet some coaches and go to the high schools. It was really important for our staff. If you’re good at home and we’re good in this area, then we know now where we need to go to supplement that. These areas of the county are these primary areas where we will pinpoint to get guys. But we can get a really good foundation from Nebraska and all the surrounding states that send their kids to our camps. Coaches come to our clinics. Maybe a lot of alums, maybe a lot of fans. I think that it may not fill up our recruiting class but it would be a nice foundation for any class if we can maintain a number in this area. I think also the better you evaluate it, the more you look. I think had we had a little bit more time to look at a couple kids that we got a glimpse of and it was June, we might would have offered that guy. When you’re coming in late and you’re limited in numbers and you have needs, you have to be a little bit more careful. There is probably somewhere in there that other guy that could impact your team. We’re going to make sure we do our due diligence and make sure we’re doing that. Understanding that we have to go other places. I’m also excited about this place’s ability to go from sea-to-sea. Look at it historically. The number of guys from California or Florida or Georgia or New Orleans or Texas. I think we can be that team. I like that idea. We’re right in the middle. We can grab from any direction. It’s not that far. I think we have an idea about a foundation point and then spreading out from there to the right spots where we can use coaches’ connections. We’ve got Charleton Warren. He’s been recruiting in Georgia. He’s from Atlanta and he’s been recruiting there a long time. And we’ve also got him recruiting in Colorado. There may be four kids in Colorado, but I know we’ve got two of them this year that are good players. That’s kind of how you take that next step and go out into the world I think.”

 

On how big a resource Charlton Warren is

“I think that Charlton was a big resource. I think it was great to have him. Everything about him and hiring him was confirmed to me why that was a good thing because of who he is. He was a good connection to a lot of these guys. The first homes I went into, Avery and Eric, defensive backs from Colorado that he had recruited, those folks wanted to know what is going to happen to Coach Warren. That is a good sign. The other part of it is his general knowledge about where they’ve been recruiting and who they’ve been recruiting. He was the guy who came up with the name Devine Ozigbo when we were looking for a back. We looked at the film, loved him, and took off from there. Having him with the background in that area was very, very good for us. The guy I also have to mention who is also in our personnel office is Kenny Wilhite. Kenny is great and had great knowledge of this class and had really good local knowledge.”

 

On how he found Antonio Reed

“He was on Charlton’s radar. I think that coaches as they go, you end up with the offer of who you think you are going to get. Maybe you got that but you also have to have that guy that is above the line, is a good player, is the right person, and is kind of ready. That is where that thing all of a sudden surfaced.”

 

On what excites him about this class

“In general, I would say in recruiting lineman are gold. I think this is a good class. This offensive line class adds real well to the class they’ve had before. I am really excited about having an offensive line that is really good and has good depth. If you could get 10 guys who are capable of playing in the game, I have never had that before. I am going to get that sometime in my life where you have 10 guys that you can put in the game and you know they can go win for you. The development of lineman in the program is huge. Both offensive and defensive lineman… I think this is good. The other thing, defensive backs in general, but I think the other thing is corners. I think that you have got to be able to play out there and if you have lineman and corners, we can find those other positions. I think another trademark of this class is that we have added some linebackers in an area we really needed to.”

 

On the thought process of hiring Keith Williams for receivers

“Keith Williams… as you guys know, I took some time on that one because we were busy recruiting and I wanted to really make sure that I covered enough bases here to feel good about it. I kind of reached into my background of veteran coaches that I’ve known across the country and talked to them about guys that either worked for them or had worked for them. I found out about Keith, initially, just like that. He worked for Pat Hill who did such a great job. Pat had, if you remember, back in the Carr days they (Fresno State) had some great receivers. This guy had recruited all of those guys, Pat told me, and he coached them like crazy. He was recruiter and he was a coach. Then, I started taking his information and going around the block and then I interviewed him. I did that with a number of people, but I thought as a coach and as a recruiter, and most importantly about who this guy is and how he develops young men, along with receivers, I decided he was the right guy for us. I think he fits exactly what we want to do in the program with these guys.”

 

On the difference between evaluating recruits at Oregon State and Nebraska

“I don’t think it makes any difference in the initial evaluation. At Oregon State, we recruited and evaluated whatever star you want to put on it and then you evaluated and ranked from there. Our understanding on what people call a five star player is pretty complete. What I always said at Oregon State was that we didn’t get a lot of five stars, but a lot of them came out of our place at the end. They were good players. It isn’t so much about development but recognizing talent. One of the most important parts of recruiting was evaluation. The evaluation to win the conference championship and National Championship, we are going to be evaluating a lot of those same guys. Our opportunity to be able to get them may be a little bit different. It’s still a process. An evaluation is the key. Some of those five star guys, may not be five star guys. That is where evaluation is really where you have to start and you have to be right.”

 

On what he looks for in a corner

“I don’t look for me, I’ll tell you that right now. At corner, what you look for in a corner is speed, but I also think there are a lot of guys that have a little of misconception. You don’t have to be the fastest guy, but you have the great ability to transition. How you handle your body; your feet is really the key. How fast you can basically go from backwards to transitioning to running and being full speed is a real key issue. You do not have to be the fastest guy, but you have to be a good, fluid athlete. We like a guy with ball skills. I know that he doesn’t have to have the ball skills necessarily to be a receiver, but he has to have great hand-eye coordination. A lot of times, they are in awkward situations and their ability to get one finger on the ball and make a play can be the difference in a game. They have to be able to handle their body and have good ball skills, great feet, and body control. Probably what trumps everything is they have to understand the position they are playing. The ramifications of a mistake or a not very smart play at corner are very, very costly. It might cost you five yards in the defensive line and it may cost you a game at corner. To be a great corner is kind of rare. All of those abilities put together. We have actually found them in all different places. I think one place where we found really savvy good athletes at Oregon State are a lot of these guys that run the zone-read at quarterback in high school. They are the best athlete on the team and they get it. We had two corners both playing in the NFL who were high school quarterbacks. That is why I say corners are gold because often times our best corners are not playing corner. They are the quarterback, the receiver, the star player on the team, the running back. You have to look around a little bit to find those guys. It is interesting.”

 

On if he is considering moving anyone on the current roster to corner

“I don’t know yet. I shouldn’t say that because I haven’t watched them enough. I am watching them work out now, but finding them within your team is also like gold. I had one kid that came to Oregon State from Illinois. A coaching buddy of my dad’s in the Canadian league had retired and moved to Illinois. He called me and said, ‘There is a guy that is kind of overlooked here and you may want him. He has good speed, he’s a receiver, he’s a really good player and you may want to take a look at him.’ The very last thing he said was, ‘If he doesn’t make it at receiver, he might be a corner.’ We liked the kid and we recruited him. He came and spent a year redshirting and at the end of that year I asked him what he thought about playing corner. He was a great kid and said, ‘Coach just let me keep working on it. I can do this.’ I said, ‘But you can’t catch. This will be a long process. Just think about it.’ He came back and did it. He became an NFL corner, so they might be there. You have to know your team and know the person. Now, they also have to buy in. If you just move a guy and they don’t want to do it, it isn’t going to work. They have to go after it. This guy really took his lumps early and obviously developed into a really good player. Those are the fun things that you find and you find those with the experience of looking at your team and seeing what these guys can do.”

 

On retaining 10 of the early commitments

“One thing for us, frankly, we were a little earlier hired than some of the other schools. One week is an advantage. I had that week to get right on some of those kids. I am going to give Nebraska credit again because I think those kids wanted to come to Nebraska. Those kids just wanted to know if we were going to be the right fit for them. They became the evaluators. That was our big job of going out and meeting them and telling them and educating them about who we were and what our plans were. This has been our history of what we have done with young men. Then you let it go from there. The other thing is it was a major priority for us. As we watched the film and as we know the commitment that this university had made to them, we wanted to follow up on that. We wanted to make that right with those families because this is a rough deal for a large number of people. Coaching transitions, right. That is why they are always examining the rules around this thing. It’s a tough deal. There are a couple classes, our old class, this new class of commitments, recruits, plus the teams. Everybody is in uncertainty and disarray. The thing you have to do immediately the best that you can is to calm everybody down and say this is going to be all right, but it’s not easy. We made it a real concerted effort to go out and say we want you to come and this is why you chose the great place and this is who we are, this is it and hope that we mesh.”

 

On what he initially likes about each of the defensive players

“Well I think first of all, I think they’re quality players. The first thing that draws you to a recruit is talent. And that’s what we did immediately. We looked at the commitments just to see them. So when we actually went to visit them we had something to talk about. We’d seen them play. We were impressed with the talent. We kind of spread it out, as I think somebody mentioned. We’ve got two defensive tackles, two defensive ends and a pretty good spread on the offensive line. So what I mean about that being gold is to really be a championship football team, you really have to be good in the lines. Defensive line and offensive lines almost trigger anything else you do. You can run whatever coverage you want to, but if you’ve got a great pass rusher over there or a really good defensive front, they control the game. That’s really, really important to continue to grow a football team.”

 

On what defensive end Alex Davis brings to the table and if he fills the need at that position

“I think so. I think both Alex Davis and DaiShon Neal. They’re good prospects. If they walked into the room, they look like the right guy. They’ve got great range about them and they’ve got athletic ability. So they’re development will be fun. It will take work. Both of them probably need strength. They need to learn more about how to play. But that’s our job to do. We like those kinds of bodies to work with.”

 

On if signing a long snapper gives him peace of mind for the next four years

“We signed a long snapper. I won’t say this is always the case, but we set aside three scholarships for the specialist positions: the kicker, the punter and the long snapper. Have we always done that? No. But we certainly understand the need and the importance of that position. There’s a guy here that’s been doing it. There’s going to be competition, and that’s good. Just two years ago we had a walk-on punter beat out our scholarship punter. As soon as we start practicing it’s a land of opportunity. You’ve got to win your job. But I think those positions are so important to you. And I’ve got the best evaluator of specialists out of anybody. His track record on doing this is outstanding. We just want to make sure we’re really good there. That’s why we scholarship them. And certainly you’ve got to be right because you’re not going to go find another one next year.”

 

On the biggest mistake a head coach can make when he takes a new job

“I think the biggest mistake you can when you’re brand new and anxious to fill a class is to rush into judgment about a player. To not know enough. And there’s a tendency to want to do that if you have some depth needs, but you are better off blank spot than you are with a guy that isn’t good enough to play. You’ve got to hold yourself back a little bit and be careful.”

 

On his expectations of the spring game

“I think as I look at the roster right now and I watch the workouts, there are about 120 guys working out. Because of the strong walk-on program here, we have the numbers of a program that lends itself better to a real kind of game. At Oregon State at this time of year, I might would have 70 guys. It was hard to play a game. It was hard to play a game and to have enough depth at every position to make it look like football. Now in saying that, I don’t know what it’s going to look like yet. We’ll formulate the depth chart. We’ll get ready for spring practice. We’ll probably make some adjustments as we go through. But as I understand it, there’s going to be a couple people watching the game. I want to make sure it looks good and it looks like football in some fashion. So it will be a little bit different for me in that way.”

 

On if he got the full amount of scholarships and if there were any roster departures from the spring semester

“No, nobody has left. And I don’t think since the start. There was a change prior to the semester. But as far as I know right now, it’s the status quo that way. And no, we didn’t get to 88, nor did we necessarily want to. It’s the same question that was asked about what’s the biggest mistake we can make. If you think you just have to get to a number and rush into judgment, you could make a bad decision while evaluating in a short period of time. Probably about as much as you could make a mistake in the talent end of it. You might know near enough about that guy. You could make a mistake in the character part of it, too. So we actually like the idea that we have a little bit of flexibility if someone comes up in a transfer possibility or whatever that might be in the course of time. I like that we’ve hit right at our 85. And if we kept this 85 right up until fall camp, that would be great with me.”

 

On if he has found someone to be in charge of just walk-ons

“The question is about hiring someone to be in charge of the Husker walk-on program and probably with a few other duties with that, such as a high school coaches’ liaison, which would really go hand in hand with that. I probably haven’t done a good job of defining that whole job. It’s probably going to be a guy that has that job coming in, and we’re going to say, ‘by the way, can you do this, too?’ We’re still looking for that right guy. I’ve got some really interesting names that I can’t tell you about yet. I don’t know where they will go. I think it will be fun. I might have to take some time with it. I’d like to get that guy started right away on the recruiting end and the evaluation end of it, but I also want to make sure it’s the right person.”

 

On if he pays attention to what everyone else is doing, such as Ohio State

“The one thing about paying attention to what we’re doing, I’m talking more about the things we talk about. You know what I mean? It’s more about what we have here. What we sell. As far as players, I think you have to look. I think eventually after we settle down a little bit, we’ll look at the players that somebody else got. We’ll compare. But all of it will be done so that we can get better and compete for the championship. That right now is the team we have to be. Part of it, you can be in a world of your own as far as talking about it, but as far as the other part of it, you’ve got to get the players that can beat those guys.”

 

On how good the classes have to be to play the kind of football he wants to play

“I guess I’d have to generally say they have to be perceived as top level. And I don’t know if you’re meaning rank, because I don’t know how much stock to put into all of that. But I think that we have to know with the ability of a Jalin Barnett. I mean I think we’re getting one of the top players in Oklahoma. That’s the kind of guy we’re going to go after. And in order to win championships, you have to get those kind of guys.”

 

On who excites him in the walk-on class

“You know, I’m not going to pick one. I’ve seen the film on all of them. And I think it’s pretty interesting because in general, these are good football players. Quite a number of them are that kind of fullback or linebacker type that looks like they have great instincts. Tough playmakers. The linebackers that I’ve watched look like they make all of the plays. And really good looking football players. Other guys I’ve looked at are in a situation where I’m not sure what exactly they will play, but they’re play-making athletes, whether they’re running the ball or catching the ball. Quarterbacking, too. You know I don’t know who will be playing that position. I always hate to discount a guy as a quarterback if he’s been successful in high school and we give him a look, but he could also be that guy who will become a receiver or a safety that looks like an athlete that could fairly easily move. A lot of those guys are sports savvy and they get it.  And a lot of those guys have played both positions already.”

 On what he likes about the guys he originally recruited at Oregon State

“Lavan Alston was a guy that we’ve been recruiting for a long time. I kind of divide the receiving recruiting into two areas. One of them is that bigger body, great target who likes to throw that intermediate curl-type stuff. Or that guy that’s going to be a hard physical matchup. A 6’3” next to a 5’10” guy. That type of receiver. And then the other kind of guy that we always like to have in our offense is speed. I hate to go backwards, but you guys know who Brandin Cooks is and Marcus Wheaton. Marcus plays for Pittsburgh and Brandin plays for New Orleans. They played together on our team. So they’re ability to run the post, run the screens, run the reverse, run the fly sweep—you’ve got weapons. I mean we’ve had James Rogers who is 5’7” who caught 91 balls and gained 600 yards running the fly sweep. So we want that kind of guy. So I think when we looked at Lavan initially, we always look to see if he would be a good sweep guy. Matt Snyder is a terrific big athlete. Some people recruited him as a defensive end. I don’t know if we’ll be more of a tight end-oriented offense here, but athletically he’s a great fit. He can be a receiver. He can be a great blocker on the edge. He is exactly what we’re looking for in that position. And that is always a hard position to find. He is a hybrid player. He is a guy who has to run down athletically, be a safety and make a play with a great target. And then he has to be that guy who can hold the edge on the defensive end when you’re running the outside zone play. So he’s a special breed. We like Matt. When I had the chance during the bye week and see a game on the weekend, I went to see Matt Snyder. He was a high priority for a long time.”