Just reading through this thread for the first time and don't even get the point of the debate. Of course recruiting matters as do player rankings in projecting the likelihood of having the physical attributes to excel at the next level. Not every player who is highly ranked will succeed and many players that are not will develop into good college players but the law of averages says that the more a roster is comprised of these players, the greater the chance that team will have better players than those who don't. It's funny that people even argue this just like it is funny that people will conversely argue that having the best coaches doesn't matter as much as having the best players. It all matters. Just look at the players who played for Alabama and Clemson today and look at the offensive concepts those teams utilize. These teams win because they have the best players and the best coaches that develop those players and put them in position to succeed.
Unfortunately, to the extent that this is true, and it is plainly obvious that it is, the playoff era in college football has only served to consolidate the concentration of players (especially but not limited to the interior lines), coaches and analysts at a few schools making it that much more difficult for someone else to catch that lightening in the bottle that makes an exception to the rule.