It will be hard for any team to be there every year and even those who were on top (USC, FL St, Oregon, Auburn...) and have great players have struggled of late. And in that group USC seems particularly interesting as they have the 5* talent (average about 3/year over the past 8 years)?
For ND, with our recruiting limitations (I am thinking academic primarily) I think a shot at a NC every 5 years or so is likely a success.
This would require better talent development or better identification of talent (finding gems) in the recruiting process. I think we can agree that we have had some great talent at 4 star and below (Q Nelson or J Love as recent examples) that have either developed or been "coached up" to play at NC level. We would need more of that across multiple years along with a few of the 5's as you note in order to compete with Bama, Georgia etc.
Go Irish