Mario has lost a game or games to teams he has out talented every season (as almost all coaches do almost every year). Unranked Arizona and Arizona state in 18 and 19, Oregon state and cal in 20, and Utah in 21. I think his staff is stronger now than at Oregon though, so that mitigates some of the chance of losses. He will need at least a couple strong classes before sweeping the games we are favored in should be expected IMO. So basically any coastal team with a pulse shouldn’t be taken lightly, for now and rivalry games are always less predictable. But I think he is going to recruit better at Miami than Oregon, so I think he will get there and we can start expecting 10+ wins in ‘24 and beyond.
For ‘22 I could see 8-4 with a couple injuries, but think 9-3 is not unrealistic if we are lucky on injuries. 10-2 pretty unlikely but not impossible.
Don’t forget the roster is still like 65/85 Manny guys.
Almost every good team and coach loses to a squad they have more talent than every year. You have to be a LOT better than nearly everyone on your schedule to go 12-0, not just "better" or "we have more talent."
Lincoln Riley lost twice in conference this year to teams with less talent.
Nick Saban lost to TAMU.
Nick Saban and Kirby Smart beat each other, so one of those is a talent upset by definition.
Harbaugh lost to MSU.
Kelly lost to Okie St. and Cincinnati.
Ohio St. lost twice to teams with less talent.
Clemson lost to NCST and Pitt.
And so on.
It's the math of it all. This is why Vegas cleans your clocks year in and year out.
If you have a 75% chance of winning a game, that means you lose that game 1 out of four times. Now project that across a 12-15 game schedule.
Some more probabilities:
If you have a 90% chance of winning every time you step on the field you will have a 28% chance of going 12-0. That's it. How often in a season does a team have a 90% chance of winning on a given Saturday? That translates to a big point spread. That's how hard it is to win week in and week out.
If you have a 90% of winning in four of your games, 75% chance of winning in another four of your games and a 60% chance of winning in the other four of your games, that means you have significantly more talent than everyone you play. That's easily a top 10 roster, maybe top 5.
Your chance of going 12-0 in that scenario is 2%. 2%!!!
One bad throw, or a ball grazed by a DL, or a sudden rainstorm can mean a 14 point swing on one play. And the math is suddenly upside down. That's football. It's not playstation.
It's REALLY hard to beat everyone you are better than. You're generally going to get tripped up at some point, but you are also going to have a chance to trip up someone that is better than you too. But when you're elite, you can't "make up" a loss because you're supposed to win all the time. Unless you are a top 5 team in a given year, you really need to look at the overall record.
The idea that Mario has some game-day albatross around his neck is statistically, nonsense. He turned 0-12 FIU into a conference champion, and took over a struggling Oregon program with a talent deficiency and won 12 games and a Rose Bowl and a Pac-12 Championship, all before he even had a chance to turn the roster over fully.
If we give this man the time and respect he deserves, he can take us to the top.