Forgive me, for I am an engineer. As a result, I am not only unable to refrain from math analogies, but that I also believe in cause and effect relationships. I don't think I'm alone here, as I've heard too many "if only we would have done X/Y/Z" arguments on this site to count. Everyone is aware there are a slew of factors that go into football success, including (but not limited to): scheme, technique, (personnel) execution. While I do think it's generally accepted that an increase in any single factor almost always results in positive total outcome, it is my personal belief that the net outcome is an uninvertable function. Unlike scientific experiments, we never get to replay football games to determine how a change in coaching/scheme/execution could have affected the total outcome. As such, no one positively knows exactly what factors are affecting the outcome, and how much impact they have.

People have spent years trying to work around this; some very successfully. The whole value in having 'experience' in a skill is the ability to ascertain what factors might be affecting the outcome when the information is limited. This is exactly why doctors are paid more than residents, senior electricians are paid more than journeyman, and so on.

With that said, I'd like to ask everyone who has suggested that "if only we would have done X/Y/Z" what makes you so sure that you've identified not only the most significant factor affecting our outcome, but how are you sure that your suggested change would have had enough effect to change the outcome? In reality, this is a hypothetical question, as we can't go back and replay games to be sure, but I think it's still a question worth asking yourself. Along those same lines, what makes you think that you have a greater ability to identify these factors than our current coaching staff? Are you suggesting you have more experience than our current coaches, or perhaps you were born with a God given talent for coaching football, but just decided you'd rather work in sales, health care, or whatever the hell you do? While I'll always acknowledge your argument that "Coach X produced better results than Coach Y", suggesting you know more about football than our current staff (or any NCAA staff for that matter) just makes you look like a fool.