The Bobby Bowden analogy explains my point. You don't just look at the beginning and the end point and then completely ignore what happened between them when assessing whether a coach elevated a program.
You mean to tell me CGC doesn't use that recent history to tell his story of what this program can be? Of course, he does. It's such an easier sell to do so than if he had to go the route of - I'm building on a dream that you can't actually touch, feel, or see for yourself. But, trust me anyway.
For example, which is more powerful to kids as to what Collins envisions for this program - the Orange Bowl trophy from 2014 or the Sugar Bowl trophy from 1956? Because, as far as big name bowl wins, that's the gap in our trophy case. Speaking about the '09 ACC title or the '90 or '98 ("shared") one? Competing for 4 ACC titles in the past 10 years or competing for 2 ('06/'90) in the past 20 years before that? How about clips of BDS at night with it rocking and thumping Top 5 teams? CGC likes telling those stories, right? Well, since we beat 2 Top5 teams at home in the last 10 years and it was something like 40 years since that happened, there's another chapter to our recent past.
The story of our program has been made stronger over the past 10 years. The fact that's even a debate is sad.
