re: I think we end up a bit less talented, but a better coached team.

Having excellent teaching and game day coaching is more important now than recruiting out of high school. Recruiting had been reduced to buying players, and everybody can buy your players. Spending nil on unproven hs players is actually probably a pretty poor user of funds. Get proven portal players and have excellent coaching. I think we are going to have excellent coaching.

The saban model of just accumulating a suffocating advantage in talent doesn't work anymore, it was just Saban's status as GOAT that helped him keep it up to an extent, but even his later teams showed cracks.