^Yet shockingly the teams who year in and year out finish in the top 10 of the recruiting classes, finish in the top 10 of the polls. Weird for such a failure of a system.
First, it's not universally true. See Virginia in the early part of this decade. Florida State also defied expectations, and Georgia is somewhat of a lesser performer. Utah, on the other hand, has become a BCS monster without a single Top 10 class.
Five teams that stick out are USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, and Alabama. These five teams consistently win the battle for the best linemen in the country. True, they also win battles for skill talent, but you'll notice, for example, USC's 10-5 star running backs aren't world beaters. Some of them are very good, and some of them aren't getting any better than they were in high school. Some of them may never get drafted! What they do provide is a luxury of serviceable backs running behind offensive lines that are stocking the NFL.
The difference between a 5-star and a 3-star running backs is usually size and perceived strength. That's how a LaDainian Tomlinson ends up at TCU and a Marshall Faulk ends up at San Diego State and a Barry Sanders ends up at Oklahoma State. Florida was a second- or third-tier program when smallish, slowish Emmitt Smith committed. The ONLY reason he even got their attention was his record-setting production in high school, not his combine numbers.
So it's all about the beef, man, and in large numbers. Remember Everson Griffin? USC could have stopped there and been forgiven. Griffin was supposed to be a bigger, stronger, faster Terrell Suggs. He didn't come close to having the immediate impact of Suggs. But USC's strength is they have solid (if not spectactular) players across their defensive front, allowing them to sit in that Cover 2 all day long without having to send copious amounts of linebackers in run blitz.
So, no, I don't think the star system is any where close to reality. If ASU signed a bunch of 5-star running backs, wide receivers, and linebackers to get into the Top 20 recruiting rankings, but only one 5-star defensive tackle, I imagine they'd still end up at or close to mediocrity like they did this season. The Sun Devils still haven't addressed the gaping hole at left tackle (or right tackle for that matter), and if they don't, this recruiting class borders on pointlessness. If they had landed Taylor Lewan and another tackle or two of his caliber, the rest of the class could have been just OK and it would have been considered a success.
