Yea, it’s all about who you can get to come to your school. High school is comparatively easy in that basically the average hs is average meaning all the high schools basically get kids from a group of 1000-2000 kids meaning almost every school has a couple good/great kids a bunch of ok kids and some wack kids... it’s hard for a high school to look horrible competing against other school basically running under the same conditions.
In college almost every kid was one of the best on their team (even at the really bad colleges) what separates good colleges is that the Oregons of the world get 3-7 best kids on a high school team and they are often the great kids at a great school where as a small d1 school or random state naia school is getting 1-3 best kids from a team and the best kid they are getting was from a small hs with 400 kids or the 8th best kids in a school with 1500 kids.
It’s not realistic to say bad coaches make bad teams, some great coaches work at schools where they make the kids way better than when they arrived but they arrived as 10.5 min (guys) 2 milers. Where a school with resources/a good reputation/cheap may get multiple 9-9.5 minute kids... even if the coach is terrible that team will likely always make a well coached team of 10.5 min recruits kids look wack.
To be good in college you need to recruit well, to be great you need to recruit well and coach well, to be ok in college you need to recruit or coach well, to be bad at college you need to coach poorly/recruit poorly (or have a hard school to recruit to).