Honestly, I have been surprised at the lack of success that Harbaugh has had especially in flipping lower ranked recruits. Usually when an elite recruiter (Urban, Saban) at a blue blood program, turns his attention to a "Plan B" recruit late in the game, they flip a fair share of those recruits. This is especially true when there is team they are taking the player from has had a coaching change (Nebraska, Wisconsin). Yet Harbaugh has only 3-
Jones DE flipped from Nebraska (Coaching Change)
Gentry QB flipped from Texas- BUT does anyone in their right mind think Gentry flips if Charlie Strong stays true to his word and doesn't pursue another QB (Kyle Murray)
Ulizio OT from UConn- Who other best offers were MAC schools
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, Harbaugh was not an elite recruiter at Stanford (Scout Rank on classes 43rd, 44th, 16th and 24th). What I was surprised to learn his only recruiting experience at the highest level of CFB was his 4 years at Stanford.
His only full-time experience as an assistant football coach was with the Oakland Raider. He was a "certified', non paid assistant on his Dad's staff at WKU. But that was while he was a QB in the NFL and WKU is hardly a CFB blue blood.
The USD (Head Coach prior to Stanford) does not offer scholarships to football players, which eliminates direct comparisons to Jim Tressel (Tress had extensive D1 assistant coaching experience anyway). That leaves Stanford. As mentioned the athletes that go to Stanford are so different that it almost has no correlation on what would be necessary to be an elite recruiter.
So to answer ant's question, maybe Harbaugh is not rusty, maybe he has no idea of what he is doing.