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That was the obvious one, but they've always had that.  What has changed?

I’d argue it’s harder for them now bc they joined the SEC. All they’ve done is joined a much tougher conference and opened up Texas recruiting more to the other SEC teams. 

That was the obvious one, but they've always had that.  What has changed?

Weirdly, I think not being second fiddle to Texas and being in a conference where second-tier teams get more big-boy status. In the SWC, you're second fiddle. In the Big 12, you're second fiddle to a team that is battling to not be second fiddle with first Nebraska, then Oklahoma. 

In the SEC, A&M sheds that a little. It probably can't be in the realm of current Bama, but it could push Auburn/Non-Burrow LSU if it gets things together. And third fiddle in the SEC gets you a NY6 Bowl pretty often. Cleanest path to mattering. 

Plus the rest of the options
Illinois - Non-football school in non-football state surrounded by a lot of schools who care more.
North Carolina - Basketball school. Both strikes me as a place that would be OK with being OK forever, plus I just don't trust them to make back-to-back good hires. 
Minnesota - Location hurts. Division hurts. Fleck seems like the kind of coach who either leaves or stays because he doesn't have the exact right place to go. 
Colorado - Don't trust the geography and kind of a smoldering mess at the moment
Nebraska - Just don't like the geography, and in the midst of almost a Michigan-like run of coaching dissatisfaction. Also suffering the "ain't never gonna be what it was" curse.
Virginia - Depends how one defines mattering. I think Bronco has long-term skill. It kind of depends if the uncertainty in the middle of the ACC pulls them back into the spin cycle with Pitt and UNC and everyone else. Maybe he makes them the king of the mediocre middle, but you're basically talking engineering a Va. Tech-like rise, and I just think that's much harder to do these day. 

I took the field, but if I had to pick a team, it would be A&M.  They've got to be able to buy success eventually.

Their coach-picking ability post Slocum was dreadful. Plus they had the oddity of Sumlin, who gave the program a rocket of at jump start and saw his team grow seemingly worse and worse each season. 

Teams like UNLV might be the next Boise State, or move up a notch, which would be a development.

I don't think Appy State has that potential.  Cincinnati does.  Georgia State?  They have a ways to go.  UCF?  Yup.

i'm gonna throw @Drew4UTk a bone and say tenn has a chance to become a respectable program sometime in the next 20 years. yes, this is both a dig and genuine prediction.

Tennessee is within three years of their next national championship.  < true story. 

so long as we're talking projections based on perspectives, i'm pretty safe saying that.  I'll say it next year too... and the year after... always with the three year caveat. 

NC State is more of a football school than is UNC.  Of course, a good coach would step up either program (and one has already).

That state of course has four P5 programs, even though two are generally not very competitive, so the talent gets split, and a lot of it leaves the state.

I'm taking the Huskers

because I've been brainwashed

No, that's indoctrination.  There's a difference.