You might find this as a surprise, but I couldn't agree more. It doesn't matter if Riley continues to get better recruiting classes. If we don't win, it's all for naught.
As evidenced by the recruiting analysis that was done last season, Blo Pelini and his staff may have had the best recruiting classes of any of the West schools over the previous 5 years, but the retention of those players sucked. If I remember correctly, of the current 2-deep last year, our average player ranking was behind Northwestern and I believe Illinois.
Another stat was that of all the Power 5 schools, we had more walkons on the 2-deep than any other school. So Blo and his staff sucked at keeping good talent on campus, and Riley and his staff had to play with what they had in the program.
Given the number of close losses (4 losses on the opposing team's last play of the game) we could have just as easily won 9 or 10 games last season. What gives me optimism is that Riley and his staff had us that close...while implementing new offensive and defensive systems, and with the largest number of walkons of any Power 5 school. We were in every game to the end last year, unlike Blo, where he would get blown out an average of 2 or 3 games per year.
That's why Husker fans are optimistic. Especially with the talent that Riley and staff are bringing in.