What Dean said. I've always made this argument about relative records between Fry (don't get me wrong, I loved him... I lived through the 60's and 70's... yuck!) and Ferentz. Until the early 90's it was mostly the Big 2 and Iowa, then whatever team happened to have a good year, maybe MSU, Purdue, or Illinois. NW and Wisky sucked and PSU came into the Big 10 in 93. It's difficult to compare the two because of that.
Hayden played fewer games, and until the 90s played really strong OOC schedules. Four things happened -
Barry Alvarez left and started recruiting and coaching at Wisconsin, with the same style as Iowa. That diluted the defense under Fry. Joe Tiller arrived at Purdue. He started throwing the ball all over the place. He recruited some great qbs, one of whom was an Iowa HS player. That diluted the qb pool for Iowa. Good teams stopped wanting to schedule Iowa OOC. That meant fewer nationally televised Iowa football games, and that destroyed recruiting as well. Finally Bill Snyder leaving for KState ruined Iowa's offense. It was never innovative after he left, and the coaches who replaced him as O-Coordinators were just not as good, and had very short tenures.
After Penn State entered the league, Iowa's role as the third Big Ten power was diminished to fourth. Purdue and Wisconsin's rise to mediocrity decayed Iowa's foundations, and an aging and cancer fighting Hayden slipped up on two recruiting classes, and the program toppled under its own weight.
It helped that during the 80's and 90's the SEC was down, Notre Dame was down, and the Big was on ABC every weekend. ESPN pumped and promoted the SEC and the BIg 12, which, along with scholarship rule changes and population migration to the south, slowly eroded the Big Ten's stranglehold on the lucrative northeastern/midwestern recruiting powerbase.
As population left, jobs left, and middle class athletes left. Nationwide cable tv sports created a huge demand for televised games, and 85 schollies allows for tons of parity. Only a few powers figured out how to retain their recruiting dominance - and they are all in the SEC.
To remain a power by recruiting alone, you need a strong base of recruits in your geographic conference region. With 85 scholarships, that's 20 D1 starting level talent recruits a year. Almost every P5 conference region produces 200 out of their millions of population base, so it's not a factor unless you are a gang of 8.
You need to have good, tactical coaches who are offensive minded or absolutely great defensive coaches. Kirk, as a d-coordinator would help almost any good P5 offensive coach in the country win titles. Same with Parker. At OSU, I think Parker with Meyer would be Alabama. He's very, very good. Clemson has this combination.
However, two defensive minded great coaches on the same staff will stifle offensive production. Look at LSU. Florida. MSU. Iowa. 8 - 4/9-3, low offensive production, very few titles.
Contrast Alabama- points and points denied. USC with Pete Carroll - points and points denied. Stanford.
Third, you need to recruit every position, every year. If there is a good player out there, and you don't have a scholarship for them - recruit them anyway. Every spring, nobody comes in with a gaurantee of keeping their scholarship next fall. Sorry. Every position is open for competition. By having the best players, and overrecruiting your scholarships, you are doing to your competitors what unlimited scholarships did to Nebraska's and Oklahoma's rivals in their heydays. Take all the best kids every year, and even if they don't play, nobody who plays you has them either. For the kids that don't make the cut, they can transfer. It will happen naturally with the good players who don't see the field anyway. Only the mediocre kids will stay, and if you reserve schollies for bad players, you are losing.
If some other team doesn't look like a great fit for a talented player or it looks like a new recruit has similar skills, get in their ear. Get in their family's ear. Get in their fanbases' ear. First, it sews dissention among the enemy. Second, proven recruits are a better bet than HS kids. Third, kids will transfer.
With these ingredients, you will have a team that has a steady stream of talent, you haven't broken any ncaa rules, you will have coaches that can use the talent correctly, and therefore you will win.
That's how the SEC recruits. It's how Texas and Oklahoma recruits. It's how Clemson recruits. It's not dirty to make kids work for their scholarships. It's the American capitalist free market at work.
Football is not an honorable game played and won by gentle men obeying decency statutes agreed upon by a handshake. It's a game played where ruthless and guilefull gentlemen win by being good talent and execution economists, and largely by winning through political maneuvers rather than physical contests on the field. You have to fight and prove yourself every day. There are no free lunches.
You can be a pirate in recruiting, a general on the field, and a gentleman in the press or public. If you are honest with your players about their situation, the good ones will follow you, as long as you lead them to victory. You shouldn't expect loyalty through sustained adversity from those whom you employ. You are there to help them succeed. If you aren't succeeding, then you have failed them. The people who stick with you through thick and thin should be outside of your business - mentors, family, friends, spouses. They have nothing to gain from your success, professionally. Ideally, they have their own successes.
Your employees should be ambitious, and strive for their own power. They should be using you to gain experience and influence, and you should expect them to be on a track to succeed or leave you for a competing role in another place. Their ambition and competence is an advantage for you when they are there. Their success elsewhere is a recruitment tool for their replacements when they leave, and their rivalry is a natural drive for your success. Honor them by beating them when you can. Praise them when they beat you - you win either way as their success will fuel your own. Don't hate them, as hate is distracting.
Enjoy the unpredictable nature of your chosen profession. Competition means losing, occasionally. Learn from your mistakes. Invite challenge and change. Experiment conservatively. It's how you grow.
If you are not improving, you are decaying. Generalize, don't specialize. A free press is your advantage - they talk about you, and will likely echo your sentiments, whether they agree with you or not. You should cultivate an honest relationship with them, and use that trust to expand and market your program.
It can be done anywhere, now. Just pit your mind to it and do it.
