Nebraska should make it a point to schedule games against Texas teams so they can hold on to there.  I think if this decline conincides with Texas A&M which won't alst forever.

As much as losing Texas hurts them, it's a little crazy how much losing the rest of the Big12 North hurts them. It makes sense considering that they lost annual matchups with the two large cities of Missouri - but it's just not something I really thought about. That being said, they will now be everpresent in Illinois, which should be just as good for them as Missouri was, and while the Texas recruits are dropping in number, they still had to get UT's, OU's and A&M's scraps from that state I imagine - not all that different from getting leftovers from Ohio, PA, and the less talent-rich Michigan, right? They've got just as much exposure in those states as they did in Texas (opposite division of same conference)?

Great minds and all that, I had spare time (I don't now) and a similar idea last year and also created a diary about Nebraska's recruiting.  As you say, Nebraska does seem to be focusing more on the Midwest than ever before.  Here's a link to the diary I did last year:

http://mgoblog.com/diaries/nebraska-recruiting-michigan-and-rest-b1g

just like they did under Osborne (Tommie Frazier, FL; Lawrence Phillips, CA). You'll notice a lot from those two states as well, especially in CA. A lot of parents feel comfortable sending their kids to Nebraska because they feel like they'll stay out of trouble there. 

We've historically overperformed on the field compared to our recruiting ranking, even in our monster decade of the 90's. Typically, we've been between 15th and 25th. Pelini is averaging 24th.

See this link for details on the above:

http://hailvarsity.com/2013/01/a-brief-history-of-husker-recruiting-rankings-1987-2012/

Nebraska has always recruited nationally, since we don't have a home base to draw from. The focus has varied, whether it be California, New Jersey, Texas, etc. Now we're drawing more heavily from the B1G states.

Bottom line, despite recruiting handicaps vs Michigan and OSU, Nebraska always has competed quite well--look at the W/L since the sixties, or break it down by decade - and there's no reason to think that will change.

As an example, here's the breakdown of the 1971 NC team:

• Nebraska 34
• California 11
• Michigan 6
• Illinois 5
• South Dakota 4
• Pennsylvania 3
• Kansas 3
• Colorado 3
• Iowa 2
• Ohio 2
• Arizona 2
• New Jersey 2
• Wisconsin 2
• Minnesota 2
• Vermont 1
• North Dakota 1
• Texas 1
• Missouri 1
• Wyoming 1
• Wisconsin 1
• Virginia 1

If you include the Dakotas, 64 of 88 players were from what is now the Big Ten. More than half of what I suppose you could consider "national recruits"--not from Nebraska or the Dakotas--were from what is now the Big Ten.

The core of that team was:

• Larry Jacobson, DT, Outland Trophy winner, South Dakota
• Rich Glover, NG, 1st team AA, New Jersey
• Willie Harper, DE, 1st team AA, Ohio
• Jeff Kinney, RB, 1st team AA, Nebraska
• Johnny Rogers, WR, 1st team AA, Nebraska
• Jerry Tagge, QB, 1st team AA, Wisconsin
• Dick Rupert, G, 2nd team AA, California
• Carl Johnson, T, 3rd team AA, Arizona

The all-Americans were three locals, two players from the core of the B1G, and three national recruits well outside their conference footprint. Willie Harper's HS coach at Toledo Scott was a Nebraska alum--this was long before the advent of recruiting rankings but he was probably a five-star. They weren't just getting scraps when they went to Ohio.

John Dutton turned out to be pretty good too; he also was from South Dakota. Other round 1-5 NFL draftees on the team were:

• Monte Johnson, LB, Minnesota
• Bill Olds, RB, Kansas
• Doug Dumler, C, Illinois
• Steve Manstedt, DE, Nebraska
• Daryl White, G, New Jersey

Recruiting was much more local in those days--the point isn't so much the concentration of local Nebraska and Dakota kids (a glance at a Michigan roster from those days shows a whole lot of MI and OH) but that their out-of-area recruiting was focused on Big Ten turf, plus Cal and Arizona.

I get info I didn't know about my own team, or about college football, or something non- sport related that's worth knowing.

Definitely, that was a different era. The game has changed so much. Everybody's on TV, more money, higher stakes, new style of play with different athletes, etc. But in a way it further proves my point: Nebraska figures out a way, and doesn't stay with what worked 40 years ago.

We'll have our new challenges, but we've been excellent too long, and CFB is too highly regarded in Nebraska, to stop us from dealing with the issues as they come up.

One thing to note is that Pelini himself is a Midwest guy (from Ohio) so perhaps he simply doesn't have strong personal ties to Texas.  Note that they've landed a few guys from Youngstown, OH, which I believe is Pelini's hometown.  Personal connections are big.  Note that we didn't do a lot of recruiting in South Florida before we brought in RR, who had estabilshed ties there.  Now we have Hoke, a guy with deep Ohio roots, and we're pulling in a ton of recruits from there.

I think Neb is much better suited to benefit from their B10 membership than PSU was for 2 main reasons:

1) As our maize (NTM)-inclined firend pointed out, Neb has historically been more of a national recruiter out of necessity.

2) Relatedly, PSU had much more in-state talent which actually caused M, OSU, MSU and others to raid that talent hot bed of PA instead of what many is State College expected (which was the opposite). Neb doesn't really have any in state advantage, and thus can only gain exposure to the Midwest talent pool.

Pelini is from Ohio, with very strong ties still in the state.  He has seen some success recruiting the Youngstown area, and has put an emphasis on recruiting in the rust belt area.  One interesting thing to watch is with Nebraska's affordability and (relatively) easy access to Chicago (right down 1-80), the school has seen a large influx of kids from the city and surrounding suburbs.  I'm curious to see if that has any influence on student-athletes from that area, seeing as how they have nabbed 3 of them based on your current recruiting classes posted above.