Biggest difference? The internet.
Honestly.
With the rapid speed at which information flows today, nobody has an ace up their sleeve anymore. Nebraska used to win on strength, conditioning and nutrition, along with great coaches and great athletes. But the secret sauce was the system. Other teams ran the option. But nobody ran it like us.
Today, there are no cones of silence. If Nebraska's doing something cool in the weight room, it's plastered all over social media. If Chip Kelly invents a new jet sweep, it's all over ESPN getting dissected by analysts and former players. If some high school kid is a freak athlete and tears it up some league in North Dakota, it's all over Hudl, Rivals and other boards. He'll have his own hype video on YouTube.
Look back at Nebraska stars of the past. Sure, we have some guys who got big offers from other schools. But a lot of them were guys who flew under the radar. They were snapping necks playing D3 ball in southern Kansas. Or competing in some 8-man league in Wyoming or South Dakota. We landed a BUNCH of diamonds in the rough because guys like Gill, Tenopir, McBride and others busted their rear-ends on the recruiting trails across the wild west. Today, Nick Saban has an army of minions who scour through the FaceTubes and Twitterpedias to find talent.
There are no secrets anymore due to the proliferation of information. Technology has brought parity.