talking about his trajectory, this season versus last, improvement, all-time wins/losses etc.

You didn't rebut any of those points by the way, you just posted them.

Before this season, it was easy to argue that Kalani was was an average coach (I'm not talking about him as a person, as an ambassador, as a friend, or a man. I'm talking about him as a football coach). He was 61 and 41 all-time, with 11 of those wins coming during the COVID season where we played a mostly fake schedule and went 1 and 1 in games that mattered (beat Boise State and lost to dirty Coastal). He had a knack for winning some big games (think Wisconsin, USC, Baylor, Boise St) and losing some gimmes against the little sisters of the poor. Those brutal losses are well documented so don't need to rehash them but think UAB, Umass, NIU, East Carolina. The big losses out weighed the big wins IMO except for 2021. But right after 2021, we started started a downhill trend leading into this season.

9-4 Good season
4-9 Horrible season (missed a bowl game for first time in 12 years)
7-6 Mediocre
7-6 Mediocre
*11-1 Great season with an asterik (fake schedule COVID year)
10-3 Great season (beat Utah and owned the PAC suck it utes)
8-5 Drop off
5-7 Big let down (lost 5 in a row to end season and miss out on bowl eligibility)

Bronco won at least 10 games in 5 of his first 8 seasons and never missed a bowl game for comparison.

This year, in the 2 biggest games of the year we mostly no showed. 2 chances to clinch a spot in Big12 Championship game against beatable teams and we came out flatter than a board. We left points on the table in just about every game by going into what I would term a "soft" game ending mode way too early and that hurt our perception as a top tier team.

The Alamo Bowl victory and beating Utah were very nice consolation prizes.

The biggest difference this year was our defense and special teams. And guess what... lots of people happen to think one of those coaches is a better candidate and a big reason for the turn around. And that is hard to argue against given that we were the top team in the country in interceptions and one of the top teams in forced turnovers and kick return TDs.