My own personal opinion - which I have numbers to back up - is that Riley's first two classes were basically average classes that Bo put together. They were better than Bo's last couple classes but definitely not as good as a couple of his middle classes.
Now, since Bo's last couple classes were not as good, it's fair to say that the upper-classmen we've had haven't been our best. However, it's equally fair to say that Riley's three years have followed a steady patter when it comes to roster talent - one team on our schedule (probably two this year) have more talent than us, one team has about the same talent we have and we have noticeably more talent than the rest of our schedule. So it's not like we have a huge hill to climb to be competitive in most all our games.
I've always thought that judging "player development" is really just in the eye of the beholder. If you think a coach is under-performing, it's because they're not developing talent. If they have good success, they're great at developing talent. And there could be some of that. But you're always going to have under-rated players who shine (Ameer Abdullah) and higher-rated players who "bust" so it's really hard to know.
I put a lot more value in schemes - mainly because we can actually get a look at them to get a little better idea if the players are being put in a position to succeed. For as critical as I sometimes am of Langsdorf, I've always said I don't necessarily think he's a bad OC. I'm just not sure if he's a good fit. I think he tends to like to throw more than will lead to a lot of success with the players that we have. He can draw up some great plays - I noted a couple in the "What Did We Learn" thread from this week. But I think he needs NFL-level QB play to really make it go and that's hard to do for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is practice time to implement it.
I think by far Riley's biggest failing is being able to find a DC who can formulate a competent game plan. Banker was just flat terrible all the way around. I think Diaco's issue is he's trying to be too cute in a basic - albeit contradictory - way. He appears to be convinced that he can play his base package all the time. And he's so sure his scheme will work that he doesn't bother to have guys line up in a way that puts them in the best position to succeed. Basically, he's out-thinking himself.
So I think our game planning is definitely lacking, especially on the defensive side. And game management is also poor. Diaco has made a couple tweaks in the second half of both games but I can't for the life of me figure out why the tweaks he made against Arkansas State weren't part of the original plan against Oregon when it was obvious from the Arky St game that the base plan doesn't work. Well, it was obvious to basically everyone but Diaco anyway. And why could we not make any of those adjustments after their second score - or the third, or the fourth - instead of waiting until after half time? I don't get it.