Yes we certainly did see that early in his career, but lots of young QBs struggle with turning the ball over in high-leverage situations.
Is Sanders prone to doing some head-scratching stuff every once in a while? For sure. He's definitely got that "gun slinger" mentality but overall his decision-making has improved substantially year-over-year and I expect further improvement this year. Also I think the season he had last year gets overlooked because of the 4 INTs in the Big 12 title game. It fit the preconceived notion of what he is for most people and so they just assume that's what he did all year, when he most certainly did not.
Just about the entire first half of the season, and certainly the first 4 games or so, he was having to run the offense with his arms tied behind his back because we basically had 1 or 2 healthy scholarship receivers that whole time. Hell, by the end of the Boise game, we had ZERO. We could have very easily lost 3 of our first 4 games had he not helped grit out those wins throwing to true freshmen and walk-ons.
And re: CMU/ASU, I think what you stated is just about right. Early season games can always be dicey, but having an experienced QB and playing both at home certainly takes some of the scare out of it. I also think playing CMU in game 1 helps. If it was, say, the 3rd preseason game I think you would be more apt for some kind of a "let down", but with it being game 1 and at home I expect the team to come out fired up and play relatively well...(the normal game 1 rust for both teams notwithstanding).
And to be clear, I don't know if I'm painting a "rosy" picture, per se. The *pieces* are there for this team to be better than last year's team because I think the defense can be *almost* as good while I think the offense (on the whole) can be *much* better. Recall that OSU only broke 30 points 5 times in 13 non-Kansas games last year. I expect that number to be much higher this year.
But we'll have to see if Mason is as good at in-game adjustments as Knowles was. There were *many* games last year where teams had some decent success against the defense in the first half of games only to get absolutely stonewalled in the second half. That was HUGE in OSU's overall success last year. So even if the offense is much better, the defense *may* be much worse, even though the personnel is there, depending on how Mason does.