I'd say the odds are very high that it's stalled or declining.
I have to say, an Iowa State football program that "stalls" at having a winning season with a bowl appearance 80% of the time, has a winning conference record over half of the time, and that has a legitimate chance to compete for a conference title 30-40% of the time, is in a pretty good place, all things considered.
I think that CMC and his staff have been one of the most successful recruiting staffs ISU has ever had (I would even say they are clearly the most successful). That success has moved our recruiting classes from 8th or 9th in the Big 12 on an annual basis up to 4th, 5th or 6th. This is good improvement, and I think it's very unfair to think that this type of recruiting performance should be expected as the norm if we were to replace the coaching staff. Even so, though, recruiting at this level does not really suggest that we should be 9-3 on a regular basis. There will be a few mediocre years where things don't quite pan out as hoped, and a few really good years where things come together great.
With respect to the real issue at hand, the poor offensive performance, what I see is a shortage of speedy playmakers (thank goodness for X and how dependable he has been), combined with an offensive line that is pretty decent at pass protection but just not strong at moving the line of scrimmage in the run game, combined with two consecutive games of trotting out our 3rd and 4th string running backs due to injuries to our top two guys. Not sure how many "elite" OC's would be flourishing in that scenario...certainly I agree that we could and should look a little better than we have, but not by leaps and bounds. And if X holds onto one pass in each game that he normally does (KU in the endzone, KSU on 4th down), we might be 2-1 in the Big 12 and counting our lucky stars that we survived our mediocre play.
So, I am not panicking. I don't think CMC is panicking. I think he is, to a fault, defensive of his players and assistant coaches, and speaks only positively of them all in public -- I consider that a wonderful quality that he has. I don't know what he is like with them all in private, but I'm guessing that he is more direct and demanding in that context...that's the kind of leader I really like and respect. Bottom line for me -- give me as many years with CMC as we can get, while he's human and not perfect, I think he's the best we've ever had, at least in my lifetime (1993 ISU grad).