a freshman performance as if it carries over into the next year. Why is it that arguments against him almost always include some sort of expectation that he'd be the exact same player he was last year?
Seems like all of this "well he's not there yet" stuff is based solely on his play from a year ago, which actually speaks more about potential now than it suggests he wouldn't be good. A whole off season to improve? Come on, it's just not fair to keep talking about last year as if that same guy would still be playing.
You worry about the condition of your OL to start the season so you go with the assumption of a combination of passing plus legs. Still though, Mangum spent all season using his legs behind meh OL play. If you can provide a shred of consistently passing the ball it makes the rest of the game so much easier.

No guarantee on any of it but this whole "he's GOING to be great but just isn't there" stuff is kind of baseless and should stop. It's got no more basis than the suggestions that he'd come in and be amazing.
Really, really hard to argue though that there hasn't at least been a string of points low enough and occurring enough this season to think about a change. It's been that bad.

Also, I don't know if you can say this Boise team is better than last year's. They lost way too much defensive talent.