According to the four year 247sports rolling average, we played 7 teams that were more talented than us:

USC
Tennessee
Utah
Washington
Boise State
USF
Toledo

Granted our rolling average window should be more like 6-7 years due to missions, but it’s difficult to argue we had the talent to win 10 games last year. On paper we had the talent to win 4-5 games and we ended up overachieving. It also helped that 4/7 of the above games were at home.

It is comforting to think that only youth and coaching problems keep us from truly reaching our potential of 10 wins. The reality is we play young players every year because our upperclassmen aren’t very good and we may as well play the young guys, and our coaching staff is likely scratching out a win or two more each year than the talent level on the field would otherwise produce.

Perhaps if our current crop of underclassmen continue to improve dramatically each year they may be well positioned to make some noise in a year or two, as upperclassmen. Unfortunately the schedules also get progressively more difficult.