It can still be effective on average with the right players running it, but it isn't an optimal approach given the reality of college football today. Making John O'Korn (who clearly is mediocre at best) look like an All-American twice or making Cody Vaz (a career back-up) look like a first-round QB is what happens when you don't make pressuring the QB your #1 priority, and that is the difference between a good season and a great one.

Those last five years you mentioned:

Year S&P FEI
2010 34 39
2011 29 51
2012 13 18
2013 16 14
2014 51 58

I see two very good defenses, two solid defenses, and one mediocre one at best. Not sure anyone would look at that and say "Nope; no improvement needed." Not sure anyone would look at that and say, "Our scheme is phenomenal." Well, anyone besides its author.

What I'm talking about wouldn't require that drastic of a change from what we already do, anyway (which is why what we do can be effective at times). It's mainly an acknowledgement that you have to get pressure on the QB every time he wants to throw and then a logical scheme adjustment based on that assumption, rather than the assumption that our current scheme is based on, which is "your QB can't make throws the whole way down the field on us, even if we don't get much pressure on him."