If you gave last year's players and last year's schedule to Bobby Ross with O'Leary as DC and Friedgen as OC, would they have been 7-6?
I am honestly not sure if this is supposed to be rhetorical or what. Outside of the 1990 national championship year (which was amazing!), Ross went the following as a head coach:
1987: 2-9
1988: 3-8
1989: 7-4
1991: 8-5
That staff did a nice building job when they got there, but it isn't like Tech was terrible when they arrived. Curry was 20-11 in the three years before they got there (including 9-2-1 just two years prior), so it isn't like the program was in complete shambles. Given that they went 7-4 and 8-5 in the year before and after the NC, I would actually say it is not unreasonable to think the Ross/O'Leary/Friedgen staff would have gone 7-6 with last year's players and schedule. I certainly don't think they would have done worse, but I am not necessarily confident that they definitely would have done better either.
Outside of 1990, the Ross years don't really support that either the coaching or recruiting was substantially different than it is today. In fact, if we cut out the NC year for Ross and the Orange Bowl year for CPJ, there really isn't much difference at all.