Yes, it absolutely is how college football works. Especially when wholesale changes are made in offensive or defensive schemes, teams almost always struggle some the first year. Throw in being able to spend 20 hours total per week for practice, meetings, weight training and conditioning, and the actual athletic events themselves, and it's more difficult becoming familiar with new schemes than in the pros. They can spend 24 hours a day on football if they want.
Why do you think Alabama went 7-6 during Saban's first year, followed by 12-2 the following season? Or why did Oklahoma go 7-5 in Stoop's first year, followed by 13-0? Why did USC go 6-6 during Pete Carroll's first year, followed by 11-2? Shoot, why did Frost go undefeated after going 6-7 at UCF? This is a recurring theme with almost every newcoaching staff.
How well a college team does in its first year is in many ways largely dependent on how similar the offensive and defensive systems are to the previous ones. Why is Ohio State's offense rolling along so well right out of the gate? Because Ryan Day didn't change much to their offense. He said he was going to make a few tweaks here and there.
We have better talent than CU on paper (recruiting classes), and much of that talent has been in the new systems for a year. And with each year in those systems, each class gets more and more comfortable. CU's offensive scheme is supposedly vastlydifferent than their previous scheme. They had a good showing their opening game, but I'll bet anything that most of that is due to CSU not being very good at all.
We went 4-8 two straight years because we had a much more difficult schedule last year than '17. We all know that the two 4-8 seasons are not equal. Not even remotely equal. We lost 5 games by 5 points or less last year. And at least 3 of those games (Colorado, Northwestern, Troy) were mostly because we shot ourselves in the foot. That includes familiarity with offensive and defensive schemes.