I'm in the camp that believes coaches who live and breathe football 24x7 are not stupid. Michigan was an elite team the last two years. They had an elite QB, RB, OL, and Defense. That combination Michigan rode to a National Championship after two years of hitting their head on the door of the CFP's.
Texas is the new Michigan and they proved that on Saturday.
There are plenty of reasons to point to on what happened Saturday. But the biggest is $20M.
Ohio State, Miami, Oregon, Texas, etc was tired of losing and went into the portal and spent a boatload of money to bring talent to their programs.