I see your point. I guess I was going under the assumption that most of a team’s starters would be in their fifth season. ..or sixth because of COVID. But you are correct, that is less and less of a reality.
When I used to closely follow recruiting, I always figured that the bulk of the contribution to team results came from Juniors, Seniors, and redshirt Seniors, with lesser contribution from Sophomores and Freshmen, so I used a weighted average of recruiting classes as an estimate of composite recruiting. It didn't change anything; there was still little correlation between recruiting and results.
Nevertheless, that may be changing. It used to be a running gag for me that the lowest ranked Ohio recruit would always be the one player sure to be a starter, and for many consecutive years it happened. In the last few years, 247Sports and Rivals seem to be putting more effort into G5 recruits, and it has been true that the players who ended up playing substantial minutes as Freshmen have, instead, been the highest rated players in the recruiting class. Last year, three of the top four recruits were Gorman, Hendricks, and Hunt. We'll have to see if that was a fluke, or the start of more accurate numbers in the future.
FWIW here are some of the lowest/not even ranked players from the past:
2012 - Blair Brown - UNR
2013 - Tarrell Basham - UNR
2014 - Papi White, Maleek Irons - 70
2015 - Jake Hale - 70
2016 - Dylan Connor - 73
2017 - Kai Caesar - 73
2018 - Tyler Walton - UNR