Sorry about everything, Mike Riley.

You are the nicest coach in college football, a Bear Bryant legacy, one heck of a coach.

That last label is what Thursday at Nebraska was about. Short of firing a coach three weeks into the season, the next worst thing for a coach is to have his boss fired three weeks into the season.

Nebraska gave The Big Haircut to athletic director Shawn Eichorst on Thursday afternoon without much explanation. There doesn't need to be one. The unstated message: Eichorst couldn't be given the opportunity to hire another Mike Riley.

Riley isn't gone yet, of course. In fact, I'd be surprised if Nebraska pulled the trigger during the season at this point. There is an entire Big Ten schedule to go. But he is in trouble having gone 16-13 into his fourth season coming off an embarrassing loss to Northern Illinois.

Some of it is Riley, a lot of it is Eichorst, but the entire Husker Nation must own some of the blame. This is Year 19 since the Cornhuskers won a conference title, and it shows. The program doesn't know what it wants to be and hasn't for years.

Since the school unjustly fired the accomplished Frank Solich in 2003, the succeeding coaches were Bill Callahan, Bo Pelini and Riley. Callahan and Pelini were hot heads who never reached those lofty heights again in their careers after leaving Lincoln.

Riley was, well, available when he arrived from Oregon State in 2015. A former Alabama player, Riley coached in the NFL but was most famous for leading the Beavers to eight bowls in 14 years over two different terms.

Like Callahan and Pelini before him, his connections to Nebraska were negligible. Pelini had at least been Solich's defensive coordinator for a year. Callahan had been the Oakland Raiders head coach before moving to Lincoln.

If you're looking for a common thread, there isn't one, and that's part of the problem. Over the years, different presidents, different athletic directors were pulling the strings. There were different offenses, defenses, philosophies, even different conferences.

Hall of famer Tom Osborne returned from the House of Representatives as AD in 2007 to fire Callahan and hire Pelini. The foul-mouthed Pelini seemed to win nine each year, but his off-putting personality wasn't The Nebraska Way. Eichorst then went opposite hiring nice-guy Riley.

Along the way, Nebraska lost its brand, its identity, its crushing I-option offense and its way. You know, all the things that made it attractive to the Big Ten when Nebraska left the Big 12 in 2010.

Now? It's absurd to suggest Nebraska would be better off in the Big 12. Try the Big Eight. Asking recruits to remember three national championships in four years in the 90s, much less the iconic Osborne, is asking too much.

In terms of national profile these days, Nebraska is Iowa Jr., or maybe the other way around. Does it matter?

There will be calls for the school hire a "Big Red Guy," but who exactly is that at this point? Osborne is 80. His coaching tree has grayed as well. That I-option offense is from a different age.

If you're not familiar with Riley, you certainly don't know Eichorst, a corporate drone of an administrator who violated the basic tenets of being an AD: shake hands, look people in the eye, have a personality, be accountable.

In one of his final acts, Eichorst lingered on the sideline Saturday during that Northern Illinois loss -- a looming Jerry Jones-like presence. It seemed contrived and desperate.

The administration, though, wasn't going to give him a chance to hire the next coach because he (probably) whiffed on the current one.

That's what this is about. You can't hire a replacement for Riley until you hire a replacement for the guy who hired him.

Nebraska needs to make a decision it is going to be pay top dollar for a visionary AD who has the school's financial permission to go as big as possible.

I'd go get TCU's Chris Del Conte and convince him to bring Gary Patterson along, or Trev Alberts -- an all-time Huskers great currently the AD at Nebraska-Omaha -- and Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen might make even more sense as a pair. It probably won't happen, but someone, somewhere at Nebraska has to have the power, will and clout execute such a plan.

On Thursday, Nebraska officials merely removed the firewall that separated Riley from unemployment. As for Riley's future job security, please see the next athletic director.

For now, Eichorst is gone because firing a coach after only three weeks is probably unthinkable.

Probably.

LSU waited all of four games to can Les Miles last season.