You are discounting a lot of things.Oh I know why he started and I agree with him. They don't have him they are worst than medicore. I don't think they would have been .500.
Mike Sherman was a very good recruiter. His 2011 team was poised to compete for the Big 12 championship. They lost something like 5 games after having a double digit lead at halftime. They led Oklahoma State, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas State, and Texas at halftime and lost all of those games. And most of them were big leads. I don't remember them leading Oklahoma at the half, which was their other loss.
That team has and will continue to put several players in the NFL. It was basically the same team that went 11-2 last year, with the coaching staff and Manziel being the difference. Manziel was a big part of that, but I contend that Sumlin and his staff made up the bulk of the difference.
I think they're an 8-4 team at worst without Manziel last season.