I was looking at the 247Sports MAC recruiting page:
https://247sports.com/Season/2019-Football/CompositeTeamR...

I notice that so far, 39 of the 57 recruits they have picked up are 3-star recruits. That seems high, so I thought I'd look at prior years:
2019 39/57 .687
2018 114/224 .509
2017 102/286 .357
2016 80/246 .325
2015 98/291 .337
2014 63/263 .240
2013 63/250 .252
2012 66/286 .231
2011 25/252 .100

Either the entire MAC is recruiting a lot better these days, or grades have been inflated. Maybe the ESPN deal is attracting better and better players, or maybe in a post-Fleck world the MAC set it's sights higher, or, maybe there is nothing here but inflation.

One other factor I track that is not nearly as prone to inflation is the other offers that players have. On a year by year basis, here are the average number of other schools that players who signed with Ohio had to choose from:
2006 .65
2007 .76
2008 1.40 <=== outstanding class
2009 1.02
2010 .87 <=== horrible class
2011 2.62 <=== weak class
2012 2.64
2013 2.17
2014 2.28
2015 2.31
2016 3.00 <=== weak class
2017 6.00 <=== I believe this will be an outstanding class
2018 2.79
2019 (so far) 4.63

You can see some correlation between these numbers and how the classes turned out, but not a complete correlation. 2008 and 2017 were both outstanding, and were higher than the years before and after. 2010 was awful, and this predicts that. Yet, 2011 and 2016 looked good on paper, but had a number of players who didn't contribute, so you never really know.

Even these numbers may be subject to inflation, if schools are issuing far more offers than they used to, which they may be. It's certainly possible that some schools send out 200 offers, knowing they can only grant 25, and then cancelling them once they have acceptances from other people. Thus, say you want 2 tight ends, a school could make offers to 16 tight ends, and after 2 accept, cancel the rest.

There is nothing wrong with that, by the way, and Ohio does it, too. For example, I remember back in 2006, there was a WR Ohio offered over the summer. He sat on the offer until January, and then tried to accept it, but by then Ohio had filled the position, when Taylor Price accepted. If he had accepted in September, he'd have been a Bobcat, but he waited until it was too late. Instead he ended up at Akron, where he made one career catch, while Ohio ended up with Taylor Price.

In twelve years, the only player where I have seen the rating reduced after they verbaled to Ohio was Maxwell Howell, who started at 4 stars, and ended up at 2. Considering that he never played in his time at Ohio, and transferred to Portland State (he played in 10 games for them last year, with 17 tackles and an interception), it's hard to argue that he was unfairly downrated.

In any case, not all are 3-star, at least not yet. Vannest is only rated two stars by 247Sports (the only rating service that still rates G5 players - ESPN and Rivals don't, and Scout is part of 247Sports now), and Atkinson, Rourke, and Gates have not yet been rated. They all play like 3-stars (or better), and that is what counts anyway.

While not related directly to your question, it does go to the value of the grading system. 247 sports had the bobcat 2013 class as 117 nationally and 10th in the mac. meanwhile, the 2013 class contained: Poling, Chad Moore, Basham, Dorian Brown, Sayles, Trent Smart, Mangen, Porter, Durrell Wood, Aloese, Cope, Mason Morgan. Looks like we might have made inside the top 10 mac for that year given that at least 5 of these guys made an nfl mini-cam and most or all made an all-mac team.

Question: are there also significantly more 5 stars and 4 stars or is there just more reliable information on the non-elite recruits?

Maxwell Howell starting for P State good luck Max!