The more resources and money you put into the assistant pool, the better recruiters you tend to get. And Nebraska needed better recruiting if it has any real chance of punching up at Ohio State.

It needs better line play, too, to match up with Wisconsin and Iowa. It starts there. On the lines. If Nebraska can't outslug the Badgers and Hawkeyes, it can't win its own division, much less play OSU for a league crown.

But Wisconsin hasn't beaten Ohio State since 2010. Iowa hasn't beaten the Buckeyes since 2005. It's not about the lines. It's the skill players.

Which means NU has to develop itself on two fronts:

1. Better line play to win its division.

2. Great skill recruiting to chase down the league's giant, which may have company soon in Michigan and Penn State.

It's only going to get harder from here. Nebraska joined the Big Ten at an opportune time; there was a three- to four-year window where NU could have won big, much like Michigan State did. The talent differences between the two programs were pretty slight.