I think the main question is on the recruiting. Are these players as good on turf as they are on paper? How soon will they be ready to play?
Coaching definitely makes a difference, but it can't overcome really poor players. Haskins had teams with losing records in the 70s. He didn't just forget how to coach during those years. Haskins was probably good for 5 wins more than his players were capable of on their own.
On the other hand, I'd speculate that if you took one of the top 5 teams in the country and placed them in CUSA with a horrible coach they'd still win conference. Given the range of talent in CUSA, a good coach might win 2-3 more games than his talent, and a bad coach might lose 2-3 more games (football).
What I'm saying here is that a 6-6 team talent-wise might have 4 wins with a bad coach and 8 with a good coach.
So if we have the top talent in the conference by a significant margin, which we may not in '25 due to them being young, but should have in '26 and beyond, we ought to be bowl eligible every year regardless of the coaches. There's a lot of IFs here, but its better than continuing to stare into the abyss. Basketball is a different story.