I think what we see here clearly is that elite talent can make lots of coaches look good, and being able to consistently bring in enough future NFL talent to make you look good is what differentiates shitty from successful college coaches. Certain coaches consistently put out top notch offenses, sure they are smart guys, but they are also regularly bringing in guys with an NFL future. I'm not saying crootin' stars are everything, but crootin' stars definitely correlate with a higher hit rate on NFL talent and takes away some uncertainty instead of trying to decide which 3* guys are diamonds in the rough waiting to be polished and which ones are still gonna be a turd regardless of how much polishing you put into it.