When that happened you said Rhoads lost the team. The story you are telling now is just about Mangino being Mangino and a guy not knowing how to deal with it due to undiagnosed anxiety. Huge difference.
Depends what your definition of losing the team is. What is your definition?
If I were a coach I would feel like I lost the team if I knew that a number of them weren't on board with what we were doing. That was the case at the time. I don't know about anything else that went down after that. Maybe he pulled them aside and they regrouped.
Fast forward to the present and quite a few players have left the team. Again, if I were a coach I would openly question what is going on that's causing all of these guys to abandon their commitment? What can I do better? Player departures would absolutely be a red flag to me that I may be losing the team.
I have no idea what your definition of that is, but chalking it up as simply "the players are tired of losing" is probably a little naïve.