I disagree with almost all of this. Being "closer" to Michigan and Ohio by 4 hours is a dubious reason to expect better recruiting success. Minnesota could easily counter that flights to Minneapolis are generally significantly cheaper than those to Madison or Iowa City that will almost assuredly require connecting flights. More important than distance is the fact that the Twin Cities community resembles the communities of many of the football recruits much closer than Madison or Iowa City does. The idea that NDSU poaches recruits that could be walkons at Minnesota seems far fetched at best. Iowa has to deal with Iowa State in state and FCS Northern Iowa. Why is NDSU an issue for Minnesota but Wisconsin has 4 FCS schools in bordering Illinois in Illinois State, Western Illinios, Eastern Illinois, and Southern Illinois? I would guess they have as many or more FCS coaches poaching potential walkons as Minnesota does.
The biggest difference in talent at Minnesota compared to Wisconsin and Iowa in the last two decades of Minnesota football ineptitude has been on the offensive line. This has had much less to do with recruiting than it has had to with strength and conditioning and player development/coaching. Wisconsin just had a kid drafted in the first round on the OL that was playing D2 or D3 football before coming to the Badgers, Iowa's had a few home grown instate kids go on to be drafted in the first round of the NFL draft (ex Robert Gallery) who had no other B1G offers. The Gophers haven't had a single first round draft pick on the OL during this stretch. Physically, our kids on the OL (and to a lesser extent DL but still very noticeable) just don't look like the guys that play in the trenches at these schools. We've had a number of guys during this stretch with a recruiting pedigree similar/better to that of many of the Wisconsin/Iowa recruits that ended up in the pros: names like Jimmy Gjere, Jonah Pirsig, Isaac Hayes, Tommy Olsen, Matt Carufel yet none of them were even drafted.
