Hopefully, we don't send this thread off-topic.
Spoiler: Switching over a scheme doesn't have to take a lot of time. Our issue is that we're "rebuilding" an offensive line, which can take a lot of time. Three years is generally enough, though.
I found a few articles about how long it takes to move a football team over to a new scheme successfully. We also have another example within the last two years, though: Mississippi State went through a coaching transition in 2020. Joe Moorhead went to Akron and Mike Leach took over.
In 2019, Miss State went 6-7 and went to the Music City Bowl. The next year, Leach took over from Joe Moorhead, during COVID, and went 3-7. This year, they're back in a bowl.
There's a long story about how
Moorhead got fired, but if the Miss State fan base liked him, he probably would still be there.
Moorhead runs an
RPO "GoGo" offense, and it's a Pistol/RPO variant with a standard blocking scheme. Leach runs wide splits like we used to run. It's not apples-to-apples, but Mississippi State in a lot of ways went through the opposite transition that we went through. Their line gelled faster than ours did.
Leach and Dana Holgerson say that they can implement their scheme in 3
days. Learning the system shouldn't be a big deal.
http://smartfootball.com/gameplanni...r-political-thoughts-about-successful-offense
The offensive line can be more work, though. I did find an article about rebuilding a college offensive line from scratch:
https://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-college-football-five-step-offensive-line-rebuilding-guide/.
I'll throw this in too:
https://www.cbssports.com/college-f...hings-being-an-offensive-lineman-is-hard/amp/
There's no rule about how long to build an offensive line from scratch. Two to three years is usually enough. We've used some of the shortcuts, like taking transfers, but we still haven't gelled. To me, that says we've stumbled a few times, or failed a couple of tests. That needs fixing.
The other litmus test is our defense: it is worse now than it has been before. It didn't see a scheme change. We've been bringing in players we'd have loved to have on the defensive line previously. That's also a sign that we have problems to fix, rather than it being just a matter of needing more time.