Man, don't know that I can support that opinion. I guess it depends on bad versus really bad. To me, last year was just as bad, or worse, than 2016. The reason was that we proved in the first 7 games that we were good and then just fell off a cliff starting with the FIU game.
Doc was 17-20 before the conference lost nearly all of its best/better teams. Not coincidentally, his record got really good the first three years after realignment. He went 13-4 against the teams that were new to the league. We also didn't play an FCS in 2010 or 2011. So we were 1-0 against FCS in 2010-2012 and 3-0 against them in 2013-2015.
Then you have the fact that we played 2 P5s every year from 2010-2012. We only played 2 from 2013-15 (none in 2014). So 4 less games against P5.
So you add it up, 2 extra FCS games, 4 less P5 games, 17 games against schools like Charlotte, ODU, UTSA, UNT, FAU, FIU instead of UCF, Houston, Memphis, Tulsa, etc.
Now you have the current issue. Those schools that were move ups are now getting better and we are starting to lose to them like we used to lose to UCF, Houston, etc. We simply have not gotten any better since Doc has gotten here. We benefitted for a few years from a watered down schedule, but that's about it.