The maturation of players who played as talented underclassmen is normally a precursor to season over season improvement. There are enough examples of this to debunk the idea that it's simply correlation not causation. Many of the data points won't be solid until after Fall Camp, but internal reporting from the program who have direct access and have reported reliably in the past indicate that at least the physical training/development is improving at a solid pace.

The variable that can't be quantified is if the coaching staff learned from their mistakes last year. More than one game was lost due to errors/schematic breakdowns by the coaching staff. If they do not improve then a .500 season would make sense.