I think sometimes OSU fans underestimate how successful we've been in football because we always seem to fall short against OU.
It's a little less convincing to point out after recent 7 & 8 win seasons (last COVID season's 8-3 winning % is roughly akin to a 9.5 win season, though),
...but just before that (from 2010 to 2017) we were coming out of an 8 year period where you could count on two hands the number of schools in the power five* that had as many 10 win seasons as us: Alabama, Clemson, OU, Ohio State, Wisconsin, and I forget the other 3 right now. And the two seasons prior to that we had 9 wins!
Maybe I'm not being realistic, but my perspective is that if anything, athletically speaking, we're too good for the barely relevant Pac-12 and the ACC. Not counting Notre Dame, ever notice how uninspiring the other non-Clemson teams are in the ACC?
*Maybe the entire NCAA. I forget which it was because it's been a couple of years since I looked into it.