You've already acknowledged that Darius Terrell is not the best source, so I won't harp on that.
But I think you're misunderstanding his quote - he's saying that Texas in the past cycles has been recruiting tweeners that other programs have passed on because we hope they will pay off after developing. For example, players that aren't fast enough for edge but aren't heavy enough for DT, but we take them on talent alone and hope they have room to grow before they play. These are great players that, personally, I'm happy to have in a class, but I would assume they aren't the staff's first choice. In other words, we've been taking our second choice and hope they develop. That may not be necessary anymore, if Texas can recruit it's first choice from high school and pick up tweeners that develop well from the portal.
I get that the guy you're quoting - who doesn't actually know anything - used the phrase "bigtime," but that can't reasonably be attributed to the staff or be considered an indication of recruiting strategy.