I don't think the cupboard is bare, but even if it was, it is not necessarily Bo's fault. He rarely used 3 LB's at the same time, so he didn't have to have a lot of LB depth. He didn't run a scheme that puts our CBs on an island expecting them to be lockdown corners when they're not. He didn't start a running back whose only purpose is for blocking and catching. He didn't try to implement a passing offense when our skillset is aligned to running the ball at every position. So TA and the OL look much worse than they otherwise would have been.
I think Riley deserves some breathing room, and I would be happy with him if we did have a decent season. But I think he's already shown that he's not capable of leading this team in the right direction by constantly putting our players in a bad position.
What really doesn't make sense is on the part of the AD. If he knows we have supposedly bad depth and supposedly the players are more loyal to Bo than the program, why does he fire a 10 win coach and replace him with a coach like Mike Riley? A coach who is not going to be here much more than 5 years no matter how well he does due to his age. We hire a coach who doesn't know how to change his system to the players, and the system he implements is completely different than the previous system. The hire of Riley makes absolutely no sense as he is supposed to make a quick turnaround. It seems that wasn't why he was hired at all. It seems he was really hired to change the culture of a program that didn't need to be changed. Yes, there were some players loyal to Bo, and were hurt by his firing. That's going to happen with any coach, let alone one with 10 wins every year. The best way to change the culture of a program is to win. And the AD decides to hire a guy who went 5-7 the year before, who has a completely different system than Nebraska runs with little depth and little time to implement those changes?
I believed Riley deserved a chance when he was hired, but he's already shown what he's capable of and nothing's going to improve. This hire made absolutely no sense from the start.