Depending on your definition of “the field,” they are probably worse than the field at 125 since Suriano.
But to be fair, most of that is driven by the 3 years they expected to have Suriano - 2018, 2019, 2020. Howard was 2-2 at NCAA’s in 2021 and Hildebrandt 1-2 last year, probably about equivalent to “the field.” But not looking good for this year.
As far as Ferrari goes, I’d agree with the post saying Cael probably would have been sick of him sooner than Smith. He seems to stay away from guys with character issues or whatever you wanna call it to begin with, and doesn’t seem to have great results turning around the ones that do (although I’m not sure anyone does).