Sammy, You are correct that Riley has made a couple of major blunders in his two consecutive trips to the playoffs. Against Georgia the Sooners had a fourth and one at about the Georgia 10 with a minute left in overtime. He called timeout to think it over and still made the wrong decision. He did the safe thing and kicked the FG to tie it an send it to a second OT.
It never seemed to dawn on him that it was the ONLY time in the entire game he could take the lead without having to put his D back on the field. He could put it in the hands of the best QB of all time (my opinion, but facts support it), the Heisman winner and future #1 pick or he could let his D try and stop Georgia. Bad decision.
This year he won the toss and then made the inexplicable decision to defer to the second half. What he really did was decide to start the game down 7-0. Saban, who probably couldn't believe Riley had made such a dumb decision, immediately chose to receive and Bama scored in three or four plays. No one has yet figured out what logic Riley could possibly have used on that one.
But that comes from a lack of wisdom and no matter how smart a young guy is he still has to acquire wisdom the hard way--fail and try and learn from his mistakes.
On the other hand Riley DID get to the playoffs two years in a row and he DID coach the two QBs who won back to back Heismans. The most important thing I heard Murray say in his Heisman acceptance speech was, "I want to thank coach Riley. No one ever coached me as hard as he did." That says a lot about why Mayfield and Murry excelled after both transferred in when Rilley was QB coach. And when Mayfield got an extra year, to everyone's surprise because the conference changed a rule, Riley knew how to coach Murray and keep him motivated while spending another year on the bench.
And you negelected to mention that all that "NFL talent" he had was recruited by him and coached by him.
So I'll take Riley any day. I have confidence he'll acquire the wisdom and he's already got everything else.
On a different subject, here's an excellent story on how Houston managed to pull off hiring Holgorson away from W Virginia. The Big 12 should have added Houston several years ago.
They are a better program, with more potential, than at least half the Power 5 programs and if they ever get in the Big 12 will immediately become at worst the #3 program in the conference (which is why all the losers in the conference want to keep them out). If the Big 12 doesn't pick them up the SEC or the Pac 12 is going to sooner or later.
http://www.espn.com/college-footbal...ionaire-bold-move-houston-dana-holgorsen-hire