Huskers discuss 'emotional' goodbye to Riley

Early Saturday morning, hours after their 2017 season came to a close with a 56-14 loss to Iowa, Nebraska’s players received a text message informing them of a team meeting back at Memorial Stadium at 10 a.m.

Most of them immediately knew what was about to come.

Head coach Mike Riley was fired on Saturday after three seasons in Lincoln, where he went 19-19 overall and just finished 4-8 this year.

Riley, Nebraska’s coaching staff, and new athletic director Bill Moos all spoke to the team briefly about the decision, and it was obviously a tough moment for everyone involved.

“Oh yeah, it was emotional,” sophomore linebacker Mohamed Barry said. “He’s a great man, a great coach, and a great mentor in my life. So seeing that, it wasn’t a good thing for me.”

After the meeting players said Riley thanked them for giving him the chance to coach them over the years and then apologized for the team not being more successful.

Moos also addressed the team and explained why he made the decision to let Riley go and what his vision was for the future of Husker football.

“He’s excited about the future,” junior quarterback Tanner Lee said of Moos. “I think he’s a great guy. I’m excited for what he brings to the program. I think he’s the right man for the job here at Nebraska, so it’s an exciting future leading the way.”

The news obviously left the players facing a wide variety of emotions and decisions heading into the offseason. Sophomore cornerback Lamar Jackson said there were some players who took the situation harder than others, and hinted that there would probably be some roster attrition to follow.

“I’m pretty sure there were a few guys here that already planned on leaving, but I can only speak for myself,” Jackson said. “I’m just going to wait it out and see what happens and what happens with my coach and stuff like that.”

While the search is now fully underway for a new full-time head coach, linebackers coach Trent Bray was given interim head coaching duties for the time begin.

Bray told the players to trust Nebraska’s leadership and to continue to work hard both with their strength and conditioning and their work in the classroom.

“(Bray) kind of just stepped up and said a few words, just telling everybody even he was emotional, he knows this was a hard time for everybody,” Jackson said. “He kind of just told everybody to stay together and make sure everybody finishes the semester at school strong.”

Jackson added that he didn’t expect any other assistant coaches to be retained outside of Bray.

“From the looks of it, they said if Riley is gone everybody is gone, unless you were told otherwise,” Jackson said. “Right now Coach Bray is the only guy who looks like he’s still here.”

For some of NU’s veteran players, this marks the second time in their careers that they’ve had to go through a coaching change.

Senior kicker Drew Brown said that while some of his younger teammates were probably upset, his advice was to have faith that Nebraska was the best opportunity they could find, no matter who was their coach.

“Just to stick with it,” Brown said. “There are going to be a lot of thoughts about transferring or not continuing to play, but there’s no greater place than here, and I think if guys realize that, that there’s no better place to be than right here at this place, I think they’ll be fine.”