One game makes a big difference in how people see progress. Most everyone acknowledged the difficulty of this year's schedule. Win the first game and you erase a baffling, upset loss which is an outlier to how this team has played the rest of the year.
If NU is 4-3 with only losses to (now) Top 10 teams, is everyone hand wringing over lack of progress? I don't know, but posters weren't out on a limb who predicted NU would lose to OU, MSU, UM, OSU, UW, and IA this year.
The IL game still stings because it changes perception greatly.