No, they're doing a conservative analysis and planning for worst cases. That's not dumb.
The $18 million in the last year of transition, using their 5% annual inflation, is about $14.1 million in today's dollars. Given the roughly $10 million dollar budget of today, that's about a $4 million increase. Kupchella, in 2002, and without deep study like this said, "We estimate (conservatively) that we would need $2-3 million in additional revenue each year to do as well as we do now if we played across the board at the Division I level."