Hmm... 2008 vs 2018...
I feel like the players gave up on Riley to a greater extent than they did Callahan. Last year, everybody pretty much figured it was a lame duck season as soon as Eichorst was fired, and a lot of the players pretty much phoned it in from there on out. 2007 was a little different, though. 2017 sucked all around, but 2007 at least had a pretty good offense. In Callahan's second to last game, they hung 73 on K-State - the team, or at least the offense, still had some fight in them.
It's probably safe to say that Riley and Callahan were both fairly poor at developing players. Callahan was probably only marginally better as a recruiter than Riley. Yes, his 2005 class was highly ranked, but that was mainly because it was such a big class - the average rating of the players was really nothing special. I think we've got a perfectly good group in terms of raw potential, but the big question is how quickly they can be developed. I'll take Duval over Dobson in a heartbeat, though!
Everybody mentions Suh, but I think people tend to forget that the 2008 defense was still pretty weak overall - the offense was playing ball-hog to keep them off the field. I said above, for all we know we might actually have an undiscovered Suh on this team. But I think the best news I've heard in the last few days is that Chinander said he's been pleasantly surprised by the defense's retention of things - like he's not having to start at ground-zero fundamentals, which I think Bo had to do a lot of.
I'm not sure how much of the 2007 offense was Callahan's vs Watson's, but it's probably safe to say that keeping Watson helped smooth the transition. On the other hand, I think Frost is probably a better schemer with a better system than Watson's. Honestly, I think Ganz is a little overrated in some people's memories. He was good, but not amazing. This year we're not returning any QBs with game experience, but does anybody really think we'd be better off if Lee & O'Brien were still on the team? Hell, I a year or so ago a few people were thinking Gebbia might have been ready to take the starter job from Lee by 2018, and if Riley & co were still here we'd probably be saying the same thing. One of the brightest spots on the 2008 squad was Roy Helu. 2018... uhh... let me get back to you on that. Riley's ground game was absolutely pathetic, but I really don't think the RBs were to blame for that. I have no idea who the starter will be, but I feel like we've got enough decent options that somebody should be able to emerge as a solid RB.
