When WIS first started HD, players were rated a lot higher (on average) than they are now, at least in Wooden where I played the first 23 seasons before stopping there.
I remember DI recruits regularly started out in the 1100s in ratings and progressed to the point by the time they were seniors the best were nearly 100 rated in most categories.
Now of course that isn't the case. Those players then didn't put up as fantastic of numbers, though, because there were more of them than just a few.
I doubt it would be possible to pull down someone of that caliber to DII, let alone DIII.
There was a guy once (again, back in the day when HD first started) who gave booster gifts to DI recruits and dropped 12 of them to DIII only to have all 12 be suspended before the season even began, thus ruining his grand experiment (no, it wasn't me, but he played in my conference). It was easy to beat his team of 12 walk ons, but other than that, no idea how those guys would have actually played if they'd been able to.