84% of NFL first round draft picks were 247 rated 4 stars // 27 of 32. I would
say that when you get to the 89 / 90 range of ratings there is a jump, which is the jump from 3 star to 4 star. I do believe there is a difference in talent, when get to around that 4 star vs 3 star rating.

I agree with your argument that difference between an 85 rated recruit and an 87 rated recruit may be hard to determine, but when it's the average rating of an entire class of 20 or so recruits I believe there is a difference.

t's no coincidence that teams like Ohio State and Georgia, Alabama and Michigan are on top of the recruiting rankings every year and are also competing for NC most seasons. You do have some outliers like Texas A&M (who stinks most seasons) and some might say Notre Dame (they are not consistently good) that rank in the top of recruiting classes and don't always have results but most correlate from the recruiting rankings to the standings.

The same can be said for the bottom of the P4 rankings, teams like Vanderbilt, Wake Forrest, Duke, Boston College and Northwestern are almost always toward the bottom of the recruiting rankings for P4 teams and are usually toward the bottom of the standings. There are some seasons when they out perform on the field compared to their recruiting but most of the time their recruiting correlates to their standings.