I think they developed into it, or pretty close, by the end of the year. The 2017 team as well. I believe Franklin recruits at elite or near-elite levels. Yet you can always count on us to lose a game we shouldn't or lose in an embarrassing fashion to a team that other teams with less talent do not lose to so badly. We lost to UM 49-10 that year, but beat Iowa 41-14 a few weeks later once we got our offense going. Iowa beat UM 14-13 the next week at night in Kinnick.
This year we looked very prepared and confident at Auburn. I don't care how good Auburn is, it's an SEC team playing at home. Granted, we had a letdown the next week. And I figured you could throw out the Northwestern game with it being played in a hurricane. The team we saw Saturday looked like it folded at the first signs of adversity (save for the defense, which took 50+ plays watching our offense do next to nothing to help them to finally pack it in). If Michigan ends up being the national champ this might be excusable, but right now it looks like PSU just getting outcoached in a big game once again.