...he likely didn't have a hand in recruiting until really the 2004 class (the 2003 class was pretty much done by the time he joined the staff after the 2002 season concluded).

A lot of the strength of Bronco's first few seasons came from players he had no part in recruiting like Dallas Reynolds, RJ Willing, Curtis Brown, Fui Vakapuna, Bryan Kehl, Shawn Nua, Andrew George, Daniel Coats, Jake Kuresa, John Beck, Mitch Payne, David Nixon, etc. Even so as the DC his focus in recruiting would largely be with Defensive players although not exclusively. He gets credit, how much I don't know.