We give scholarships to Kickers, punters and (sometimes) long snappers. Not all schools do that. That lowers our recruiting classes. Our classes are always around #50 nationwide, yet we go 6-3 in conference, or we win a NY6 bowl game. Things just don't always make sense. It's true, the top ten recruiting schools are generally the best teams. So yes, recruiting ratings mean something. But, that oblong ball bounces in funny ways and there are just a lot of other elements that can affect your results. Like, are you facing 5 ranked teams out of 12 games? Or maybe just 1 or 2 ranked teams. Your 3 star recruits can do fairly well when they mostly face similar competition.