"USC is not the elite.. Oklahoma is.. THey are over 500 miles from each recruit to be specific."
The point is that you've only got about a 30% advantage in distance. , so if you've sent ~$55,000, Oklahoma would have to spend ~$72,000, if everything else is even. Unfortunately, it's not even. I don't think anyone knows the actual numbers, but I'd guess the Elite buff is at least 10% (otherwise why have it?), and prestige is at least 10% (probably more with the NC), which brings him at best into the ~$60,000 range, assuming his buffs are pretty minimal. If they're higher than that, you could be recruiting even with him or worse, and he probably started level with you in recruiting $$$, with carry-over and that sweet NC cash. A rough guess would include the possibility that he didn't spend as much as you did on his low $$$ recruits, because people are less likely to even start a battle with an elite.
For distance to really help you at the DIA level, you need a recruit in your 180. If that was the case here, you'd have almost a 40% advantage in distance, but even then, it's tough to recruit against a coach with both a prestige and elite advantage. To win consistently against that kind of competition, you need to catch them while they're battling for more than one recruit, and you're trying to get their 2nd choice.
DISCLAIMER: This is mostly speculation and guesswork. Almost none of it's quantifiable, so I'm guessing at a lot of variables and my calculus just isn't that good , but when you take them all together, the risk/reward graph gets kinda steep.