I keep seeing that ESPN Big Ten preview and all I can think about is the 1994 Rose Bowl team. We did not have a single 5-star recruit on that roster. We had Ron Dayne coming in as a freshman who nobody outside of New Jersey even knew about. We had Barry Alvarez telling us we could beat anybody if we just ran the ball and played deefense. Now I look at these recruiting rankings and we are sitting at number 24 while Oregon has five 5-stars and everybody acts like that is just how it works now.
Let me tell you something about that Notre Dame game coming up in September. I remember the 1993 game when we went into South Bend and we had them on the ropes in the fourth quarter. That was real football. That was when you earned the right to be on the same field as a program like Notre Dame by being tougher than the other guy, not by having a better NIL collective. I worry that we have lost that identity somewhere along the way. You cannot buy toughness in the transfer portal.