Let's take it down a notch here....
I think Lovie will be great coach and I think he has already lit a flame under the !!! of Illini Nation that will not likely be extinguished anytime soon. But... to think he's going to start pulling in 1-3 5 star recruits is getting ahead of ourselves. Each year, there's about 30 5-star recruits. You're suddenly thinking that we're going to be pulling in 10% of the nations 5-star recruits? This year, only three teams pulled in 3 5-stars recruits, and two of them competed in the national championship game.
Don't get me wrong, the players will want to play with Lovie Smith, but the best players are still going to go where the wins are. When Lovie wins, which I'm sure he will eventually (not likely this year), the top tier players will start looking at Illinois. But, unless we're competing for National Championships each year, we'll likely be looking at 1 5-star recruit at best most years.
The rest you said seems way more accurate. If we could constantly be pulling in 4-star and upper tier 3-star guys, we'll be just fine with Lovie coaching.
I'm going to slightly disagree. What do these 5-star recruits in football, as well as basketball care about? Below in order, is what they care about:
1) Get me to the League
2) Playing Time
3) Winning Conference and National Championships
This is what they care about in that order. No and's if's, butts, or jiu-jitsu about it. So I believe, because the Illini now has a staff, that has worked with NFL players, these 5-star recruits will start coming. Sure the Illini needs to win, but I have strong feeling, they will have a least one 5-star in that 2017 class. Just saying.