This is something I have been thinking about, for a while. It is now into July. During a normal recruiting season, by this time there would have been multiple prep camps, combines, 7-on-7 tournaments and competitions. Tons of in-person opportunities to gauge the prep talent, and how well they've developed since their junior seasons in high school.
So you have the legit "can't miss" 5-star talent. They've long been men among boys in high school. They've earned starting roles as freshmen and sophomores, and by the time they're juniors, they are state leaders in their categories. They have the physical measurements that would impress, even if they were seniors. So they get the ton of major program offers early on, their names get thrown around as the models and examples for their classes, and of course they garner all the star ratings....
Then you have the next class of kid, who may have the measurables and frame to have potential, but hasn't yet shown the dominance on the field yet, or was a year or so away from a weight program into turning themselves into beasts. So they are being monitored by staffs to see how well they develop, but haven't gotten the load of offers yet.
It would be this off-season of those camps, where those kids show those staffs. But the virus has shut everything down. So there's a ton of 3* kids out there - kids who have the body-types for Div-I programs, but need to show more if they are major Div-I program material. These are those kids every summer who get the bumps up in the ratings services, and go from 3* to 4*, and low 3* to high 3*.
It remains to be seen what kind of prep talent we've been recruiting this cycle. But in the past, we've offered lower-rated kids, who then started getting offers from a bunch of other top programs until they rise up to a higher rating. That usually required a healthy summer camp regimen, to let those other staffs see what type of talent that kid has, and we don't have that aspect this summer.....
