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Was Riley preparing to fire Mike all along?

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WhyNotaSooner

All-Conference
Nov 1, 2004
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I'm beginning to believe he's had a plan B all along. He brought in Ruffin as a safety net for comfort, and then Diaco right behind Ruffin. And after listening to MS during his radio interview w/ Dusty, he sounded as if he was 'on notice'. Perhaps I'm wrong but it's starting to look at it.

Thoughts?
 
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OUSOONER67

Heisman
Mar 23, 2004
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I think so. How could Riley not see that the defense was holding this team back and has for years. Everybody else could see it so you know Riley did as well. I always thought Ruffin was brought in to eventually replace Mike whether or not Mike was fired or demoted Ruffin would be there to take over the Defense. I am not sure Ruffin is the right guy for the job long term but I guess we will see how it all plays out.
 
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roygbell

Junior
Feb 11, 2011
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WhyNotaSooner said:
I'm beginning to believe he's had a plan B all along. He brought in Ruffin as a safety net for comfort, and then Diaco right behind Ruffin. And after listening to MS during his radio interview w/ Dusty, he sounded as if he was 'on notice'. Perhaps I'm wrong but it's starting to look at it.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I'm not much into reading the tea leaves. I think McNeil is just comfort food for Riley. They have been together since the day Mike Leach was fired. So, it is probably a stretch to think that Riley did more than bring his buddy Ruffin into the fold as he trusted his coaching and counsel. I think Diaco was just a loose end at the time. He had been let go at Nebraska and was someone available for Riley to bring in as a quality control guy just to give his defensive coaches another idea person.

You seem to be reading things into both Riley and Mike's thought process instead of just accepting the circumstances that led to Riling letting Mike go. I do think that having both McNeil and Diaco available likely made it easier/convenient to let Mike go at mid-season.

This way Lincoln has the rest of the season to see how things go and to search for a possible DC to hire. Firing Mike now I think makes recruiting easier for the team.
 
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IAMJCHAPMAN

IAMJCHAPMAN

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If so then it most certainly wouldn't have been the plan to fire him midseason. If it was his plan then why not just do it after the Georgia game? I think Riley wanted to see if Mike could turn it around but the defense was regressing and Mike seemed to have lost some (if not most) of the players.
 
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iasooner1

All-American
Nov 13, 2002
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Someone once said "at this point, what difference does it make" ? that seems to have been somewhat effective.

The entire Defense should be watching this juggernaut Pitt effort against the mighty Irish to get some pointers
 
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Senior Sooner

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iasooner1 said:
Someone once said "at this point, what difference does it make" ? that seems to have been somewhat effective.

The entire Defense should be watching this juggernaut Pitt effort against the mighty Irish to get some pointers
Click to expand...
Had 'em down...let 'em up...Still Time!
 
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WhyNotaSooner

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iamjchapman01 said:
If so then it most certainly wouldn't have been the plan to fire him midseason. If it was his plan then why not just do it after the Georgia game? I think Riley wanted to see if Mike could turn it around but the defense was regressing and Mike seemed to have lost some (if not most) of the players.
Click to expand...

I think the loss w/ a bye week following the loss was the set up for the firing. He really had nothing to lose after the loss. And let's face it, getting down 21pts before half time was the first time that's happened under LR's time. Word has it he called out players and also Coaches, he was not happy at Halftime.
 
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iasooner1

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Lsu has long been called the corn dogs or some other fried food, ragin Cajun trash, etc
 
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OUnabomber

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WhyNotaSooner said:
I think the loss w/ a bye week following the loss was the set up for the firing. He really had nothing to lose after the loss. And let's face it, getting down 21pts before half time was the first time that's happened under LR's time. Word has it he called out players and also Coaches, he was not happy at Halftime.
Click to expand...

so you are saying you think Riley had it preplanned that he would make this move going into the bye week?
 
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roygbell

Junior
Feb 11, 2011
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Actually, outside of having Mike around for half of the 2018 season this mid-season firing is better than right at the end of the season. Riley had someone already on staff and he has time to solidify any damages on 2019 recruiting.
 
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WhyNotaSooner

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OUnabomber said:
so you are saying you think Riley had it preplanned that he would make this move going into the bye week?
Click to expand...

I think he prepared himself w/ the hires of Ruffin & Diaco. I think he then had a plan that included the RRR game as a benchmark because of the Bye week following it. If they had a loss going into the Bye week, it was the time to execute the plan. They had a loss. Stoops was fired.

To think otherwise means one of two things,
1. Stoops hit a kid so the firing was needed immediately.
2. Riley was very emotional over the UT loss and without a plan in place he fired his DC.

I believe neither of those two things.
 
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OUnabomber

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I think you may be giving Riley a little too much credit. I just don't personally believe he had a master plan to fire Mike going into a bye week if we lost to Texas. There is probably a lot more to the story than what anyone of us know. I know Deano reported tonight that there had just become way too much negativity associated with how Mike interacted with the players and maybe Riley just had enough. I think he realized Mike had lost a good number of the kids and it would just never work
 
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WhyNotaSooner

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OUnabomber said:
I think you may be giving Riley a little too much credit. I just don't personally believe he had a master plan to fire Mike going into a bye week if we lost to Texas. There is probably a lot more to the story than what anyone of us know. I know Deano reported tonight that there had just become way too much negativity associated with how Mike interacted with the players and maybe Riley just had enough. I think he realized Mike had lost a good number of the kids and it would just never work
Click to expand...

Agree w/ this. But I think you might not be giving Riley enough credit. I mean if you need/want to get rid of the former HC's brother that has a very high profile, you better create a plan of action that includes replacements you can trust, and a set time on a calendar that works such as a Bye week or specific week after the season due to recruiting. With the loss, the Bye week afforded him an extra week of transition.

Having said this, w/o a loss (not just the Texas loss) Riley would not have fired MS mid season right before a Bye week.
 
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BillyRay_rivals31072

Heisman
Jul 14, 2001
14,858
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Riley simply had Mike on thin ice after the Rose Bowl debacle last season. Word floating around is that Riley wanted him gone after that, but Mike wasn't able to find another job to land at. So Riley decided to bring him back to allow him a chance to redeem himself. The Texas game disaster just broke Riley's back with Mike. He had to make a change. Maybe mid-season wasn't the classiest thing to do, but why wait till the end of the season?? Mike had apparently lost the players. If that's the case then it likely wasn't going to get any better the rest of the season with him.
 
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Senior Sooner

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BillyRay said:
Riley simply had Mike on thin ice after the Rose Bowl debacle last season. Word floating around is that Riley wanted him gone after that, but Mike wasn't able to find another job to land at. So Riley decided to bring him back to allow him a chance to redeem himself. The Texas game disaster just broke Riley's back with Mike. He had to make a change. Maybe mid-season wasn't the classiest thing to do, but why wait till the end of the season?? Mike had apparently lost the players. If that's the case then it likely wasn't going to get any better the rest of the season with him.
Click to expand...
This!!! Mid-Season, or Not...The Band-Aid Didn't Work...The Tourniquet Didn't Work...Amputate! Better to Try to Cut the Losses and Move On!
 
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6

62SackMonster

Heisman
Jun 22, 2002
40,784
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CalSooner said:
Interesting thoughts.

Certainly Lincoln had to know that Mike was not working out and was holding him back.
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I don’t think he realized this until after Texas game. Otherwise he would have let go of mike after the rose bowl. He may have had some inklings after the army and Baylor game, but he wasn’t going to do anything unless we loss which we did, of course the growing frustrations of the players on the defense was a tale tale sign that Mike had lost them. Ruffin was brought in as defensive voice since LR didn’t know defenses. This is why I am still concerned because why didn’t ruffin say something sooner. Diaco was there at the right time and right place after the bad pub at Nebraska, and Lincoln needed to make a move to keep up in the arms race with Bama and others.
 
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OUnabomber

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BillyRay said:
Riley simply had Mike on thin ice after the Rose Bowl debacle last season. Word floating around is that Riley wanted him gone after that, but Mike wasn't able to find another job to land at. So Riley decided to bring him back to allow him a chance to redeem himself. The Texas game disaster just broke Riley's back with Mike. He had to make a change. Maybe mid-season wasn't the classiest thing to do, but why wait till the end of the season?? Mike had apparently lost the players. If that's the case then it likely wasn't going to get any better the rest of the season with him.
Click to expand...

Well we all know that he never should have brought Mike back to begin with. I bet he is thinking the same thing right now
 
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JoeOU1

Sophomore
Feb 11, 2012
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I think Diaco was brought in to get acclimated to the team and the program as a replacement for Mike as DC.
Ruffin was brought in as “comfort food”, as mentioned above.
It was going to be very hard, (gotta look at it without the crimson glasses), for LR to fire Mike after the Georgia loss. He was a first year coach, Mike is Bob’s brother and they had just lost a playoff game in OT. So the outsider/national media optics would’ve portrayed LR as pretty arrogant and smug. That’s not what we needed. He did the PC/coach speak thing and shared the blame for the loss.
Now we as Sooner fans knew this was total BS. But it really was the right way to handle it.
Forget about the ONE bad year at a program in disarray, where Diaco was the DC, and look at the rest of his career and tell me he’s not exactly the DC the we need.
He’s already got a leg up on anybody else we could bring in by having been inside the program all year.

Good things are coming defensively for OU. I believe Diaco will be named the DC, not co-DC, at the end of this season.
We’ll just have to wait and see, but those are my 2 cents on it, which is all it’s worth.

Boomer Sooner!
 
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