My recruiting restrictions:
- Can only recruit and sign max of 5 players that are 4 star or higher
- Can only recruit 1 player nationally (all other recruits must be from a conference state, in my case SEC)
- Must cut any player recruited/assigned to your team by the CPU (for some bewildering reason, the CPU will add 1 to 3 players to my class, even though I've got recruiting assistance off.
Even with the above listed rules, I still can get a top ten class, so I may go to a max of 4 players 4 star or higher to increase challenge.
A couple of other things I do is only allow 1 redshirt per season and only allow 1 attempt per offseason to try to persuade a player to stay (when they declare or want to transfer)