People are used to having a pool of players that were not available to lower levels; leftovers, so to speak. So if, on the final day, you found yourself needing to try to formulate a plan C, you had a group of players just waiting around for you -and you could sign them in one cycle with a "$110 special" package of scholarship and promise to start. There are still D1 players waiting around for you now, but you have to find them via scouting, not just searching a comprehensive database. And no players are protected from anyone, so lots of those players have D2/3s invested in them. It's not so much that this scenario isn't "right" or realistic, it's just a significant difference that many coaches are struggling to adjust to.
You dont have to invest many early APs in a recruit to establish some interest, and keep most lower level teams looking elsewhere. But it's a tough sell to get people used to the idea that there is more than one strategy that can be successful, so you see a lot of these gameplay complaints coming from people convinced that they *need* to absolutely maximize their chances with their top targets, and any expenditure of attention on back-ups is wasteful.