I think Cockeye's skill position talent has fallen off hard these past few years. they had a run with several quality RBs in a row and recently the WR talent has been poor with depth being even worse
It's possible their evaluation and development suddenly went to shit, or maybe the racial issues from a few years back have impacted their recruiting
I can add some insight -
QB has never been better oddly enough. They recruit pretty well there in spite of themselves. Petras was really talented coming out and they'd turned down Zach Wilson (lol) in order to land him. Labas has a solid arm, he's just underdeveloped. Marco Lainez (88***) and Pesar (90****) will both come in behind him. Idk why they even need Manske. Room should be full of good arms after the '24 class signs.
RB is fine - Kaleb Johnson is going to take up the mantle of a long line of solid backs there. Good for 1k yards
WR is absolute dogshit this year. Might be the worst WR room in the nation among P5s, definitely B1G.
OL is probably the biggest departure from the past, mostly due to staff turnover after the '19 season. Doyle was a scumbag but he was definitely among the top guys nationally in keeping an S&C program humming. Polasek left for Wyoming about the same time to take a promotion to OC - one of the best OL coaches in the business.