The success or failure of a season largely rests upon what was expected ahead of time. If you expect that your team is going to go 12-0 but they lose 2 games on their way to a BCS Bowl game, you’re likely disappointed. Conversely, and this is more familiar to Gopher fans, should you be coming off a 1-11 season and your team manages 6 wins and a bowl game in Detroit then you are more than likely pleased.
Of course everyone is typically somewhere in between. And that’s fine because defining success or failure of a particular season can really happen anywhere in between 1 and 12 wins.