I wasn't wordsmithing there. Just interchanged goal with quota. Meeting quota is always the 'goal', but then, you'll often have 'stretch' goals that you'd love to hit but are a little above and beyond what you're expected to hit.
Obviously all circumstances are taken into consideration, including past performance, etc. But, when you have someone who is consistently underachieving, not meeting goal, etc, then that's cause for concern.
Relating this to Painter, his career at Purdue seems to have been like a rollercoaster but with rounded hills at the top, not peaks (which would be a FF or NC), but he's also seen the deep valleys (last place B10, upsets in 1st round of NCAA).
The question is, is that trajectory going up again? An indicator would be recruiting and I think most of us on here, who follow the team and news, would say that there's some cause for concern since MP hasn't landed any of the top instate '17 guys. Now, that could all change by this afternoon, but if we fill the class with guys that weren't really top priorities, then that's definitely something to worry about.