It still is an excuse in year 2 IMO probably half of the coaches you listed have worse records in year 1 and 2 than Mario. I believe Norvell, Sark, Leipold all had worse first 2 years. Napier is TBD but I assume the second half of their season things get wonky, Brohm in his first year who knows but he was a career 500 guy at purdue, Venables walked into a MUCH better program to sell, legit CFB team and he went under .500 and this year aside from Texas has beat no one. Year 3 is typically the make or break year where that excuse runs out IMO.
Fair enough, I’ll elaborate.
When highlighting schools like Kansas, it’s not the record you need to look at. It’s the improvement they’ve undergone comparable to the talent they have.
Take the GT kneel/fumble out of the equation for a split second. We were 20+ point favorites and were barely in a position to squeak our a win. Last week, UNC committed nearly 150 yards of penalties, and yet rag-dolled us around in the 2H in a game that honestly, they could have won by 20. They dominated us in the 2H.
When it comes to conference play (SO FAR), Mario has completely **** the bed and looks minimally better than some of our predecessors.
Leipold took Kansas from 2-10, to 6-7 (big jump), to now 5-2 and probably winning 7-8 games (another jump). Mario has brought in 40+ new players, Kansas assuredly has worse talent than us.
Sarkisian: 5-7, 8-5 (4 losses by 1 score), probably staring at a 10-2 or maybe 11-1 regular season.
DeBoer: Immediate success. 11-2, currently 6-0.
Heupel: 7-6, 11-2, currently 5-1.
Napier: 6-7, currently 5-2 (2H of the season TBD, but remember they’re the youngest team in college football…he’s parading the youth movement. We’re not).
Venebles: 5-7, currently 6-0.
GJ Kinne (Texas State): first year, 5-2. Texas State had gone 3-9, 2-10, 4-8, and 4-8 before he got there.
You can even throw Deion (gross) into this category…I’m sure I missed some others. Talent and culture are no longer an excuse in this day and age of NIL and transfer portal acquisitions. We signed a top 10 portal class, right? A top 10 recruiting class, right? New coaches, right?
Play like it.