As irony would have it, we've not seen the fuller effects of ER yet. The HS 2017s were the first class to open the floodgates of 9th grade commits. These 2016s seniors had a few 9th grader commits, and then tons of summer rising soph commits. But what I call ER happened earlier. A lot of HS 2013s committed as rising juniors, then a lot of 2014s and 2015s committed as rising sophs. I would argue we're seeing a PARTIAL effect now with kids who are in college now. This college senior class will be the final chapter of college players who were offered and committed after they played the spring high school season as juniors.

People are free to take their own theories now. The data isn't complete yet, but the partial date in so far does make the point the ER is a poor strategy. Going early to get THE star in the class like Shack Stanwick or Ryan Conrad or Matt Rambo does get your team ONE great player on a given year. Considering Hop, UVA, UMD are all sucking now (and UNC has losses) to start this season before the real conference season starts for them is a REALLY bad sign. The problem now is if you harvest 9th graders and get one star, you're not set you're screwed because you have to field 10.

Also, at some positions like FOGO and goalie which are really important the ER there seems to be the worst. A good number of the top FOGOs and goalies in the college game today were not the Ty Xanders boy band kids from back in the day...you know, back in 9th grade brah!