You have missed the pointI am so tired of hearing the Year 7, Year 8, Year 9 blah blah blah. It's like how stupid investors and corporations think. The line can't and never will always go up. Look at Bama and Clemson right now. Did Saban and Swinney forget how to coach? Nope. But their current crop of players isn't quite as good, or maybe these guys aren't gelling as well as past teams, etc. It doesn't matter what year it is, as this isn't the NFL where you can have your franchise QB for 10+ years.
In saying that, yes there are coaching philosophies Campbell clearly needs to drop the pride on and adapt. But take our dumb rival Iowa. They could have canned Kirk several times because "Hey it's year 10 WTF?" And then they turn around and win 10+ games, go to the Big Ten Championship, etc.
The issue isn’t the record, it’s that the same weaknesses are present. That means they are due to coaching flaws. Magnified due to not having good NFL skill position players to mask it
An OL should not perform like last Saturday, but if it does, it should occur in the first few seasons. To never have developed a top OL, and have arguably a better OL in Year 1 than Year 8 is highly suggestive of a major staff weakness
To have the same lack of detail and unforced execution mistakes over many years, potentially more, is a bad sign
The Year 8 narrative isn’t about needing monotonic success. It’s about reaching a large enough sample that more of the same weaknesses is incriminating. Patience has run thin on waiting to have a good OL and ST, good at the margins, having an offense that’s collectively better than the individual talent (like the defense has been), etc
Maybe it finally comes, but after 8 attempts at it, perhaps CMC just isn’t good at those things, and we’ll never max out a roster under him.