It's distasteful but the next step up is money. The big spenders are winning the recruiting battles and the portal battles for the very top talent.
Doing more with less used to work but you can look around and see that several of the QBs still in the hunt for the trophy aren't at their original school. Once they got recognition, the teams that build winners were there to offer them elite teammates.
We're a top 10 team and it feels good but until the money is better, we've found a ceiling. I'd say we'll need the $20M the school can provide + about $30M, maybe $40M / yr, by 2030 and at some point, without a multi-billionaire angel, I'm not certain other teams can keep up with Knight or Ellison or Texas oilmen money.