Indirectly posed to me so I will respond. My answer is yes, because I don't think Claeys would have averaged that over the next 4 years. Again, I'm making claims on the future which cannot be proven - but this is just a fan message board so it's not really much of a crime. Even if Claeys had been retained, I would consider 7-8 wins over the next 4 years to be more impressive than the previous 3-4 years.
For one, it would mean that the University of Minnesota went damn near a decade averaging about 7-8 wins/year, which is basically unheard of in the modern era. Secondly, when we were succeeding in 2013/2014 I believe the Big 10 was as weak as ever and it is steadily improving - plus the transition to 9 game conference schedules needs to be considered. Note - when I am talking win numbers I am always speaking "pre-bowl" numbers. I don't really judge the success of a season on glorified exhibition games (playoff, Rose Bowl are exceptions - but being in those scenarios really already guarantees magical seasons).
While I, for the most part, thoroughly enjoyed the Kill/Claeys era it is factually obvious that they couldn't get over the "Wisconsin hump." For the program to take a step forward and be where we all want it to be, we need to be able to beat the badgers occasionally. I don't see anything wrong with taking a chance on the young coach who most everybody thinks is the next big thing. I'm not blind to the fact that it may not work, but I don't think Claeys was so special that the risk wasn't worth taking.
