Thinking more about it, I wonder how much of #1 and #2 are almost mutually exclusive.
I think a lot of recruiting is salesmanship, and salesmanship has a certain level of bullshit associated with it. Developing players is much more nuts & bolts teaching and doing, where bullshit doesn't fly.
Shifting to basketball, I think of a guy like Matt Painter. Dude has a hell of an eye for talent, and is an absolute superstar at developing players and developing schemes to work around his players' skill sets. Has trouble recruiting because he's honest, forthright, and will tell you exactly what he sees [even if it's not something you want to hear]. Compare that to Juwan Howard, for example, who came into Michigan and started winning recruiting battles despite having absolutely zero college coaching experience and no head coaching experience at any level, because he can sell the NBA angle. He has proven nothing about getting his recruits to the league, because he has no track record.
Now, that's not to say Juwan Howard isn't a great coach; the jury is still out on that. But he hasn't yet shown that he can do #2. He knows what the NBA wants, sure. Does he know how to teach his players to get there (and hopefully play good team basketball and show up in wins in the conference as well)? We don't know.
To look at another exclusivity between #1 and #2, there's this logic that a grand developer of talent (or master schemer) that does well at a place like Texas Tech, Washington State, Kansas State, Northwestern, would explode at a place that recruits itself like Miami or USC. How many times have we heard "C'mon, he won at
Washington State - imagine what he'd do with the talent Miami gets!" But in thinking about it for about 25 years of watching college football, I've come around to realizing it's not that simple.
We really underrate what it takes to socially manage some of the big personalities that Ohio State and Alabama land. It takes a rare type that can mesh big personalities into a workable system despite how that coach might want to differently scheme or differently develop talent. Conversely, Washington State or Kansas St signees go to Pullman or the Little Apple with little other options in mind, and knowing they'll need time in the weight room and under a position coach before they put a uniform on. Mike Leach going to Miami wouldn't be used to the amount of player pushback he'd get from personalities like Kellen Winslow wanting more early playing time and willingly and effectively voicing his complaint through media backchannels.
There's a lot to say about this, but how many times have we seen a program "do it right" in slowing building a winner with player development and consistent winning which parlays into better recruiting classes, only for those 4 star laden classes to fall apart two seasons in. Examples: Iowa's 2005 or 2006 signing class; Michigan State's monster 2016 signing class.
In short, the logic doesn't work that developing signing classes of three stars into a consistent top 25 program translates by the
same equivalency into signing the Ohio State level of 4/5 star players and
by the same coaching approach assuring a seasonal top 5 contender. Signing 4/5 stars requires a different (or added) type of coaching to keep things together.
