247Sports took all of the college football teams in the FBS, and analyzed how talented each teams roster was, in accordance to each players recruting ranking when they entered college. According to their calculations, NC State’s team is the 44th most talented roster heading into the 2017 season, and they rank 9th in the ACC.
This tells me a couple of things.
Recruiting rankings aren’t everything. There are a lot of people for these recruting analysts to keep up with, and people like Nate Irving and Russell Wilson can enter college football as 2-star recruits.