Yes but what everyone is trying to tell you is it won't say that way especially with all these TV deals being so tilted towards the Big ten and the SEC.
Eventually it's going to become extremely obvious that it's not a fair playing field and not that it really was before but it's certainly not going to be now.
A common theme of this thread is to point out the playing field has never been 100% perfectly level, so that somehow means any new changes won't have any impact and it's impossible for things to get more slanted.
It's completely nonsensical.
The guy pointing out that we were the 45th best combined sports program and will still be the 45th best program is a great example, total blinders to seeing the hill he lives on becoming steeper by the year.
Historical/geographical inequity (a given) + movement toward super conferences + NIL money + more open transfer rules...all of these things add up to a more challenging future for ISU athletics and most other programs in terms of wanting to at least compete.
Nobody is claiming 70+ programs realistically had a shot at being #1, another thing people are rationalizing to make themselves feel better.
Who knows if ISU and comparable programs will rise to the challenge or not, but to pretend there aren't an increasing amount of hurdles is silly. It's entirely possible college football in particular has peaked in popularity when we are regularly talking about a small super conference that excludes half the states in the country compared to the status quo where college football is crazy popular in non NFL markets.
