I tend to agree that we redshirt too many guys when we lack depth and talent overall already. There was a time when we were loaded at nearly all positions and could not only afford to redshirt guys, we really needed to redshirt as they would otherwise waste a year of eligibility by being a 4th string player that would get maybe 50 snaps in mop up duty when we were up by 40 and things were well in hand.
Now, we are in the opposite circumstance of facing a shortage of talent in the first, second and third strings (not even sure we really have a third string as such?) and the fear is we will have to play these three star and low 4 star guys before they are physically or mentally ready as freshman and shatter their confidence, etc.
Riley I am sure would like to play his best athletes, no matter what age or grade level, BUT he is following a plan to gradually rebuild and upgrade our overall talent - over a period of years. My suggestion was that he ought to redshirt his two best players at every position, in year one, if possible and play the thirds and fourths, no matter what the win/loss record would be. As it turned out, we did poorly in that area anyway. Immediately, act to ration and store up as much talent and build as much experience and depth as possible for years two and three. Snyder did this at K State and it was somewhat successfully done at KU (they only had a few good seasons before coaching changes doomed them).
In addition to saving talent, en masse, the idea is to develop the back ups and get mroe competition across the team. 4th string guys often see themselves as so far down the chart they won't ever play and get discouraged. They get some playing time and it will boost confidence and encourage them to work even harder, helping entire team grow.
Now, going forward, I am thinking that redshirting should be aimed at primarily players who are either injured and will start the season without game ready status, or have major major issues and need the year just to have a chance. (we should not be recruiting more than a handful of these a year at most to start with going forward). We used to have enough quality walkons to make up for the redshirt guys from the 85 but apparently now we really are about 12 players short of the minimum needed and that missing dozen kills us in the second half of the season when the going gets the toughest anyway.
Perhaps the eligibility rules should be changed to permit a player to participate in no more than 200 quarters over a 5 season period (roughly about 12 or 13 games over 4 years at 4 quarters each). OTs would not be counted. This way, a few games for injuries and whatever would not spoil an entire year's eligibility. This would expand playing opportunities for many more athletes, which, is of course, the very reason for the sport in the first place, correct.