If I'm being honest, Michigan and Ohio State are better examples. They are similar in geography, and obviously in our conference.. Yeah, they're not really better examples. Relative to the Big Ten, Michigan and Ohio State are situated in fertile recruiting grounds, and each have a national brand that brings in high-level recruits from all over the country. Additionally each have very strong academic institutions and there's been a recent trend where elite academic schools are bringing in stronger and stronger recruits i.e. Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt. Compare this to Nebraska where there are what, 3 D1 football recruits a year? And i'm pretty sure that Nebraska is the only school in the Big Ten that doesn't have AAU certification, which I believe they lost shortly after joining the conference. Add those two variables up, and Michigan and Ohio State are in different stratospheres on a go-forward basis, regardless of how Hoke's tenure will end up.