Does that get him a pass for a down year next year, which would be somewhat expected given the reduced experience levels?
I don't think it would get him a pass, but with how slow GT is to pull the trigger once its obvious it will need to be done, I do think it'd let him survive a down next year unless it's a disaster.
as far as next year with reduced experience levels often fans will talk about how a team can improve but the record stay similar because the schedule gets harder, but next year could be the opposite for us. We could take a step back and still find ourselves in a similar situation.
There are a couple reasons I say that.
1- avoiding the bad losses early. Even with a step back and less experience, we could very easily avoid those types of games.
2 - A step back could come in the form of being less competitive in games we lose while not taking a step back in losing extra games. Most of our losses this year have come in competitive games against the top half of the ACC. In the grand scheme of things if we lose by 12 to UVA instead of 2 it doesn't really change a whole lot. We're likely to be less consistent next year due to inexperience. We just need that inconsistency to hit in a way that isn't losing a bunch of close games by playing well and losing against good teams and bad and losing against bad teams.
3 - more friendly schedule in conference. We've played 14 conference games. 9 of those against teams in the top 6. In total we'll have played 11/16 games against the teams in the ACC with winning records currently. I don't know the rotation and obviously which teams are at the top changes year to year, but that balance should shift and see us with more opportunities against the more flawed teams.
Next year I we still have a good amount of experience. We very well might start 2 seniors and 2 juniors. They won't have the same level of experience that guys like Moses and Jose have but that's normal for programs that aren't recovering from dumpsterfire territory like we were the first few years under Pastner. And while we'll be younger, I think we'll have more raw talent overall, and the team composition (of who is actually playing) will probably be better with hopefully a true shot blocking center and more size overall being advantages for next year compared to this.