My issue with you and others focusing on 10 win regular season as a standard are doing so without any context of why 10 win seasons with our current (or next years schedule) is not = to most of the 9-10 win seasons Mack racked up. In Mack's tenure of racking up 10 win seasons, we played 4 non-conference games (almost always consisting of 3 absolute cake walks and 1 mid level Power 5 team we definitely should beat but sometimes didn't (i.e., UNC, Stanford, NC State, Ark. etc.). And back then, the Big 12 was a decent but EXTREMELY top heavy conference. There were at least 2-3 scheduled in-conference wins. Basically every single season we had 6 scheduled wins (easily 3-6 TD favorites in each) + 2-4 games we definitely should win (14+ point favorites) and then 2-4 games that would make or break the season (OU plus whomever was scheduled and good that year out of Nebraska, KSU, Colorado, A&M). It's really no different than what Michigan and Ohio St. have been able to do this year or some of the "fools gold" season Aggy has racked up. SEC teams have built their entire conference superiority legacy around non-conference cupcakes, scheduled wins and an unbalanced conference.
Focusing solely on wins and losses without context isn't helpful. That being said, I don't think Sark met expectations this season largely because of the OSU loss. Because in context (how many starters they were missing to injury) that team had no business keeping it within 2 scores.