We'll start at the top. Do you feel RS freshman Burrow was better than RS junior Burrow? Simple question, but it stay a lot about setting the table.
Moving on to the non-quantifible part. I think this is interesting because it's not at all unique to Urbs. Fans across the country assume their coach loves their not great QB to a fault. It's pretty common. At a point, we must ask, are all these coaches watching hours of practice films and misjudging all of it (maybe), or are fans by and large built to believe what they've hardly seen is better than what they often see? This is not to say it's 100 percent one way or the other, only that this common feeling might be endemic in the kind of optimism we see in ourselves.
The Schiano thing speaks to another sort of splintered perspective. You're saying the coach would've addressed it early on. I assume you mean early last season, maybe after the suspension? Because here's the thing. You know who built the two best OSU defenses in the Urbs era? That'd be Schiano. His first two were better than Ash's, notably better. Should he have been fired after doing that back-to-back years? Or are we prisoners of rather emotional moments.
(Also worth noting, the new OSU DC was demoted by Michigan, basically passed over twice, and now has this. Maybe it's just the odd nature of CFB at play?)
The larger point is this, it's one of entitlement. OSU fans assume these are 15-0 teams and it is incumbent upon the coaches not to mismanage them down to only playoff teams. There is no thought that it's hard to be that good, that consistently contending, that there's an easy fix if only some young player were handed the job without putting in the work. We ignore the oddity of the sport, the fact almost no one goes undefeated and only one team wins each season. Perhaps the earlier part is how sports should be and really is, but I remain skeptical.
I know, I know, I'm 2 days late and a dollar short. But I do like this post.
Joe Burrow this year is Heisman caliber amazing. Joe Burrow last year (I think it was a M*ch fan on this site) was campaigning that he was the worse QB (with some qualifier) and had stats to back it up. I only remember this because I was saying if you remove the 1st 2 or 3 games where his stats were pathetic; he was a decent QB the rest of the season. Joe Burrow as a freshman looked the part to become an amazing QB, but we don't have enough data to make absolutes about his freshman campaign.
Of course you are right that the coach has hundreds if not thousands of hours of tape and practice on who his QB is. We the fans, get one maybe two practices and game day. We fans also have selective memory, for OSU we all remember Jackson (starter) Germaine (backup) fiasco ("It cost us a national title!") Backups and Rookies tend to get a performance bump, because like us fans opposing coaches and defenses haven't had a chance to study him as well. I really think the "No Tape On Jones", helped OSU win the 14 title. He looked world beater those 3 games, but seemed human the next year... So, it becomes obvious that the backup is better, especially when the backup can do something the starter has struggled with.
For me the entitled OSU fan, it has always been Beat
M*ch*g*n, contend for the B1G Title, and let the beauty pageant pieces fall where they may. From my observations this year OSU has looked the part of one of the top 4 teams, but I'm not a voting member of the beauty pageant, so I'll keep rooting that we beat that team up north and contend for the B1G title. I do think PSU, TTUN, and (assuming) Wisconsin have the talent and coaching staff to upset the Buckeyes.
