It seems like Texas is more or less doing this.
I think there are plenty of examples from this past recruiting class where Texas held to its offer on a 4 star type kid and that kid went for bigger money elsewhere. Also, there are the examples where Texas is being aggressive on sure fire talent, which led to us getting Atkinson and Cooper.
Overall, I think the approach Texas this past recruiting class was in line with this sentiment to not overpay for 4 stars and target sure fire 5 stars. What threw Texas off was 1) they misread how the flood of money across schools would shock the market - this led them to not getting 4-stars at reasonable rates because other schools overpaid + having to be more aggressive of 5 stars than they otherwise expected, and 2) completely misreading the OL landscape - this was partly due to #1 but also poor prioritization on Ojo v. Lee and others.
It seems Texas will be shifting to a more highschool recruiting approach of targeting premium players & value investing in lower 4 stars and 3 stars + portal recruiting for proven players to fill needs and fill development depth.
I think in the long run, if this approach takes hold across other programs, this will push down the starting income of these 4 stars and/or sink programs that are overpaying for them.