To put it this way, Bob Davie was able to bring in good talent, and even had a moment where the team could very well have contended for the NC in 2000 if it weren't for some freak injuries. He was a bad head coach, but he and his assistants did bring in good talent, especially from the Texas area.
Willingham was a terrible coach, as well as a lazy ass recruiter who would basically take the "feed like a sponge" approach. While he did manage to pull in a good recruiting class in 2003, a lot of that came from his one or two hardworking, competent assistants as well as the momentum from that extremely lucky, fluke season. I will never forgive him for his sending our program into the stone age, as well as for that shitty job of recruiting for the 2004 and 2005 classes, which were the worst of all time. There were maybe 5 players in the 2004 class that played meaningful minutes, and maybe 7-8 in the 2005 class. You should have at least 10+ contributing significant minutes in each class.
Weis had plenty of faults as a head coach, but proved that you could bring in the top talent. There's no question that he worked very hard to bring in the talent, and the 2008 class that served as the foundation for Brian Kelly's magical 2012 season was rated #2, just behind the Crimson Tide. For that matter, his off-years of recruiting in 2009 and for that 2010 class provided significant number of players who contributed meaningful minutes.
Brian Kelly was a very good head coach, but it's no secret that Brian Kelly was somewhat of a lazy recruiter, and that he was strongly dependent on his staff members to pull in the better players.
He still managed to pull in good talent, and had an even better knack for finding many a diamond in the rough. I would dare say that he's one of the best at finding underrated three star players and turning them into very good or even excellent collegiate players.
Marcus Freeman is relentless as a recruiter, and was so even as an assistant coach. He's been around the collegiate game for a while now (more than a decade), and has what appears to be a very competent staff of hardworking assistants. While he's short on experience as a HC, at least he has that buffer available, and he looks to be a smart student of the game.