I'm not willing to go down the road of accusing teams of having "bag men". But I'll take facilities as an example. Going way back to OB and then progressing to Franklin, both of those guys stated very publicly that Penn State needs big time upgrades of Lasch & the facilities to compete. What type of bull-shit did both OB & Franklin get.... they get the $$$ trickle thru to maybe renovated offices one year, and a fresh paint job another year. And they hear about a 10-year master plan that includes pork-barrel projects for Sandy & Barron to include museums and natatoriums.... Meanwhile, Dabo & Saban do not even ask for upgrades and their schools are spending hundreds of millions immediately on new football facilities. If Bama gets new
Personally, I believe #1 is most important. If you are a team wanting to get into that "next level", you gotta beat all the teams you are supposed to beat ... and do it convincingly. I'll use UGA as an example, because I think they are the closest team to breaking into the Bama-Clemson-Ohio St party. Over the last few years Georgia has stomped on everyone they were supposed to beat. They had 1 hiccup last year in an ugly loss to S. Carolina when Jake Fromm threw for like 4 INTs. But other than that S. Carolina hiccup, the Bulldogs have taken care of business ...... on everyone NOT named Bama. They've gone 0-3 vs. Bama. But no one blames Georgia for not getting over Bama because Bama is Bama. Just like LSU. I believe in the last 10-15 years, LSU has like 1 or 2 wins vs. Bama. Again, no one blames LSU because Bama is Bama. Just like Ohio State is Ohio State.
I think the key is:
1. Beat all the teams you are supposed to beat. No more loses to MSU, Minnesota, Indiana...
2. If you lose to Ohio St, it has to be a very competitive game
I believe if over the next 2-3 years we cranked out 11-1 seasons, and in those years our only loses were like 27-24 or 31-28 nail-biter loses to Ohio St..... then everyone would say we were elite, we were right with Ohio St... we just could not get over the Ohio St hurdle.... Much like Georgia is trying to get over the Bama hurdle.