Good, this is partly about reputation. If you’re a football coach at Western Michigan or a basketball coach at Dayton and you’re doing well, you likely have a preconceived notion of what programs will dish out the $$$$ for their coaches and what ones usually pay on the lower end. We want to be in the first category.
Even when we have bad stretches, it’s essential that we maintain a “Sleeping Giant” reputation that “just needs the right guy” and is willing to invest a lot of money into athletics, ala Texas A&M or UCLA. You have to be able to sell people on the VISION of Illinois becoming a Wisconsin of the last 20 years and maybe even an Ohio State or Texas someday. That’s why I’ve always been a 110% supporter of JW as AD, regardless of how his first few hires turned out; he seems great at articulating that vision and getting people to buy in (increased fundraising money, getting a fairly well-respected NFL coach to come to a bottom feeder football program, getting a sitting basketball coach at a program with plenty of tradition to up and leave to come here, etc.).