videos from others who had already played the game and they walked through the recruiting process and I have tried to emulate the same process. But like you said, the key is to focus on 10-15 players that you can go all-in on. I also focused on placing a bunch of 4/5 star players first on my board (though you can't place just any 4/5 star player - they need to be in pipeline states, or be close to home, have some interest in you , etc.), offering a scholarship to them all and then filtered out players that higher prestige programs were going after and then went "all in" (send the house) on everyone I could. I scheduled visits as soon as they were available. Once their "ideal pitch" was unlocked I switched to "hard sell" (and then added extra actions to cap out their attention). As players committed and/or locked me out I'd backfill with other players lower on my list and/or look at 3/4 stars in the recruiting pool who were still "open" and continue the process.

One other thing to consider is "sway" as it will have a chance to add a second "ideal pitch" that is unique to your school thus either allowing a more effective "hard sell" or even give you the ability to do both a "hard sell' and a "soft sell" on 2 different ideal pitches (assuming you have unlocked the coach skill tree enough to put 65 points on the recruit).