Ed MOTHEREFFING G
Chances make champions
so if you go back in the 80s and 70s it was the big 2 and little eight. in the late 80s and 90s wisconsin, purdue, minnesota, and even nortwestern built up their programs through emulating with the other two were doing and hiring good coaches, and the conference added penn state. So as a result by the time the 90s were going on you had michigan, ohio state, minnesota, wisconsin, penn state, purdue, NW, and iowa all in and out of the top 25.How'd the big ten fall off from the 90s? Or did it really not fall off and it's just not getting the same attention?
What happened to Iowa, and Purdue was good with Brees.
Since then, michigan had a bad coaching hire, iowa has a coach that should've been gone years ago, purdue wasn't really sustainable; they just had 2 hot Qbs in a row leading to about 7 good years, NW isn't SIGNIFIGANTLY lower but recruiting is doing them no favors, minnesota had a coaching staff that was allergic to recruiting, and ohio state has sustained success. The southern schools also started paying more for marquee coaches like Lou Holtz who started building up south carolina to the C- level they are now, Nick Saban, and Les Miles.
Also,
The big ten was among the first conferences with legit national exposure and TV deals so your random kid in Florida or Missouri [lawrence maroney] might want to get out of the environment they grew up in, and move to minnesota or purdue after watching the rose bowl or watching them play on ABC for a couple years. Now every team is on tv so the medium big ten schools don't have that advantage. Michigan and ohio stays recruiting kids from Florida and texas because nobody is really on TV more than they are .
Realistically, the big ten at its lowest was never lower than the ACC or big east.