If Eason returns this can easily be a 2015 to 2016 jump. Where you have a team who on paper only won 7(hopefully 8 games) but all the metrics suggest this was actually a 9-10 win team so that jump won’t be as big as many think we have to do.
That 2015 by most metrics was a 9 win team so in reality that was a 3 win jump plus adding two win John Ross was only a one win jump while many saw it as a 5 win jump.
As for Oregon, I think that is the elephant in the room that their fans don’t want to address. Helfrich came from a good program with structure so their older guys although experiencing 4-8 were sharing lockers with guys who played in national title games very recently.
Cristobal I don’t like him but his teams are disciplined. Taggart had them as one of the most penalized teams in the nation and Cristobal immediately had them as one of the best teams at not getting penalized.
Sadly I think he’s a better coach than we want to give him credit for. However, I do think he benefitted from Helfrich and to a lesser extent Taggart setting him up nicely. He inherited a first round talent at QB which is half the battle.