Little bit of both.
Remember, headed into last week, the narrative from EVERYONE...coaches, players, us, the national media, local media, is we pushed ND around on both lines. Then we pushed USF around, rudely. Then we pushed UiF around. Then, OK, we didn't run it great against FSU, but that's because they completely sold out to stop the run (which is true), and look what we did, Beck went nuts, threw 4 TDs in 3 quarters (should've been 5 if not for a really simple dumb penalty), our defense was great until the game was in hand, but we're 5-0 and have bullied everyone.
Then one game happens, and we've had 700 think-pieces all week about how clueless everyone is.
Just relax. Part of what you said is true, though. Just because we were winning doesn't mean it was being done in the most hyper-efficient way possible. The offense hasn't been great this year, overall. Again, even though we're 5-0, it was done mostly with defense and some spurts on offense, but nothing even close to what we saw last year.
It really is funny what simple winning and losing does to the macro and micro views of a team. And it should, at the end of the day, it's all that matters. But, we have the ball 1st and 10 on the Louisville 31. Let's just say the same play happens, but Beck and Lofton are on the same page, Lofton breaks the route off hot, makes a guy miss, and scores a TD, and we win 28-24. The mood here would be 99.8% different. Sure, some of us would be saying "****, we got lucky, the offense isn't great but maybe we try X, Y, Z, etc" And it'd be justified. But 31 **** yards, and it goes from that, to holy ******* christ this entire staff is clueless we'll never win **** what a bunch of pussies Mario can't coach for **** fire Dawson we just run the same play over and over etc etc.
The truth, as usual, lies in the middle. We need to be better, we should be doing some of what you're talking about (and I'd bet we are), but we also went from #1 on everyone's Top 25 list to losing a game by 3 points, to a 1-loss team, where we turned the ball over 4 times. Let's see if we can't execute going forward AND add a wrinkle or two.