Mike Riley On Keith Williams' Future With The Nebraska Football Program

Mike Riley spoke about the Keith Williams situation after practice today, addressing the “800 pound gorilla in the room” as he called it. Riley didn’t say anything that was a complete surprise.

No red flags during hiring process or obviously Williams would not have been hired.

The lack of red flags includes knowledge of two previous DUI convictions. It would be obvious to assume that since they’d occurred a while ago that they did not effect his potential status as an employee.

If memory serves me correct (and it’s iffy sometimes these days) policy was changed after Tom Osborne kept Lawrence Phillips on the team so that the head coach didn’t have as much control over those decisions as they did in the past.

This is an area in which we’ve seen other programs get themselves intro trouble, i.e., Joe Paterno’s complete control at Penn State, Art Briles’ control at Baylor, to name a couple.

Another obvious point. If Williams stays in any capacity, there’s going to have to be some pretty tight guidelines on what he has to do. Those are to make sure he’s taking care of himself, but also gain the university and Williams the possibility of looking credible in what they’re doing.

Here is audio of Mike Riley talking about Williams. Graduate Assistants Hardie Buck and Tavita Thompson will coach receivers in the interim.