Let me start by saying that I doubt Dino would be fired in a Covid year. I will also state that at the moment I am neutral on him (albeit fading fast) but let's see how the season unfolds.
Much of what you mention is fan stuff. You have to think like an executive; i.e. Wildhack. The metrics by which he will judge Dino are very different than how fans judge him and they all come back to more high level factors and especially $$$. SU has invested a sizable amount of money in athletics: increased salaries for football, Dome renovations, the IPF, etc. At the end of the day it won't boil down to how good a postgame speech Dino can give, or excuses for 4 out of 5 years or whatever. It will boil down to whether the AD believes Dino's performance merits him keeping his job, whether the direction of the program after 5 (or 6) years is where he wants it to be, and whether his return on investment is acceptable to date. Those will be the high level factors. Dino is a highly paid guy in a P5 conference and with it comes significant expectations.
You say there is no other coach we can get that is going to turn it around (which of course is not true) but that is the exact same thing that is said every time the program is nose-diving. Besides, that is not even the issue; the issue is not who else could we get, the issue is does Dino's performance merit him keeping the job. End of story. I can tell you right now that I have never known an executive yet that was not totally confident that he (or she) could not successfully replace an underperformer with someone better. If they are not confident in that mindset then they don't belong in the job. I am pretty sure Wildhack belongs in this job and I am sure that he is confident that he could successfully replace Dino if it comes down to it.
An AD is more than willing to ride the coattails of a coach he did not hire as long as that coach is successful. They are far less likely to want to be joined at the hip with someone they didn't hire who is also not performing to that AD's satisfaction.
Is Wildhack happy with Dino? Not my place to say but I do know that booting the OC and DC last year was a giant flashing red light for the program. Again, I am not offering an opinion on whether Dino should stay or go and at any rate I doubt it would happen this season anyway. However, if we finish the year sub- .500 for the 4th time in 5 years under Dino, then Wildhack will have some big decisions to make.
