Excellent troll, OP. Under no circumstances would I want RR back. Having said this, the reason so many fans feel like 8-3 is a bad season is because RR’s teams set such a high standard. Most years under Don Nehlen 8-3 was considered a success. Fans were excited about any bowl bid in the 80’s. In 1985 WVU was 7-3-1 and didn’t get a bowl invite. (That’s when Nehlen began talking up forming a new conference.) In the 90’s most years we were just hoping to get a Gator Bowl bid. We have it pretty good. We were unprepared and underperformed against ISU. We were competitive against OU and OSU. Holgorsen has the program in a pretty good place. Just as important, Holgorsen seems to learn from his errors and grow as an HC every year. I think he’s done a good job here. I think he can win us a B-12 championship. I think he has some decisions to make about our defense though.
Also during the Stewart years the Big East was so weak at the time that anything more than 1 conference loss was disappointing. The final year of the Big East, when UConn won and went to the BCS Bowl was probably the worst season ever collectively for a power conference.
Considering WVU was not far removed from the RR years during that time, that was a very disappointing era - we should have played in 2 more BCS Bowls.
Right now, we are in a conference with a schedule where we dont have a talent advantage normally, or a significant one even against the middle of the B12.
If there is a coach who can change that talent gap, I'd welcome him. Just not an easy thing to do.