The claims that we don't have great recruiters and we've fallen from grace in general can absolutely coexist. There's a reason why I began and ended my post with the statement that some, possibly much, of our problems are related to the recruiters themselves.
But what we're witnessing today isn't some new phenomenon. As other's have said, this is basically a re-run of virtually every class dating back to 2011, with 2012 being the lone exception. And even that one had us losing a Tampa kid to Usc and Diggs to Maryland, with many people asking the question, "why can't we land a ____?"
For close to a decade, with many interchanging parts and personnel, we've largely sang the same song every single NSD. Kids who'd start the Spring game going to be a guaranteed RS behind 5 players at another school. Kids playing us all along only to make a bizarre pick at the end. We used to land kids the moment they got an offer at FNL. That's not happening anymore because the luster we once had isn't there right now. Hopefully, it's a trend that will run its course with some overall improvements. But it's been going on since well before Mullen.