Mike Riley isn’t going to be fired before the final two games. Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos made that pretty clear on Monday, saying the head coach “deserved to finish the 2017 season.”

But after hearing what Riley said at his Monday press conference, Husker fans probably want to run him out of town even more so than they already did.

Riley talked about his disappointment with this season and how his team has performed on Saturday afternoons. He also talked about how he appreciated how passionate the fan base is about the program.

That was the normal, typical, ordinary part to the press conference. But Riley followed that up with a pretty head-scratching comment.

“I love this team,” he said. “I love their approach every week and we have had very few issues except for the games and I appreciate that.”

Considering how poorly Nebraska has played all season long, that’s pretty hard to believe. But even if it was true, putting extra emphasis on games is probably a wise decision. Nobody really cares what happens behind the scenes.

“I am obviously, like I mentioned right off the top, I know everybody and when I said that players, coaches, fans, everybody is disappointed in what is going on,” Riley said. “This place has maintained their passion for their teams and Husker football for a long time and I am certain that they will continue to do that and they should.”

Disappointed is just the tip of the iceberg for Big Red Nation.

Everybody is probably just counting down the days until Nebraska starts searching for its next head coach.