There are some similarities between Riley and Osborne but there are differences as well. Riley is more like Osborne than Pelini and Pelini is more like Devaney but Devaney and Pelini were not like twins either. Callahan was not much like any of the above. I don't think I would compare Solich to any of the above either and he had some of the traits of all of the above. He just wasn't a play caller. He struggled mightily to sequence plays.
I think the biggest problem with Riley is the sequencing of plays and while there may be a fairly large number of plays in the play book, they don't seem to use many in any given game. I believe I read on here or elsewhere that Cavanaugh said in one recent game they actually ran the same running play 31 times during the game. That sounds crazy to me and must represent about 75% of ALL the run plays used. These are college football players which means they are college students and surely capable of learning and mastering more than a half a dozen different plays per game. Any defense will figure out what you're trying to do if you keep doing it over and over. Now, the fact that we ran the ball fairly well (I'd give us a C- anyway. That's not bad if the defense, albeit not a very good one, still can't stop you from gaining 3 or 4 yards per play fairly often. The defense got worn down somewhat as Ozigbo did his thing quite well as the game wore on. Ozigbo (my preferred starter at this point) can wear a defense out and could easily handle 22 carries a game, spaced out as 8 in the first half, 5 in the third and 9 down the stretch
As for the team with fire and brimstone, I think he probably has his way and his teams have NOT given up, generally. It seems they are slow getting started but in fairness to the players, it may be that the game plan is very 'conservative' and cautious and this leads to a less agressive and firey team if you will. I think the team seems to be playing more and more confidently as the games pass - we needed that in game 1, not game 4. The players should have been more ready for game one in my view. Not sure why except again, as has been mentioned in other discussions, there is a phobia of injuries and therefore they are minimizing the physical contact and blocking and tackling full speed in practice. I know we lack depth but we need to be tougher and the more physical, better conditioned, stronger team. This requires a task master type of leader.