what site is the recruits with their birthdays??
So an on-age 2022 should be born after September 1st, 2003. That would make them turning 18 during the 2021-2022 school year.
Looking at the top 10, four of them are playing down. Only one from MD! Now note that the top prospect has an early birthday, but in his defense he's generally played up two years (with 2020's). So I'll give him a pass. Plus, he's a June 2003, so it's not a huge stretch there.
Among the rest of the 5* players (12 total), four of them are playing down. Again, only one from MD!
From the first wave of 4* players (13 total), eight are playing down, and again, only one from MD!
From what I can tell, the majority of them so far are borderline... June, July, or August birthdays. I'm not going to hold too much against them either. And unless I know they did a pre-high school year, I'm not going to give too much grief to parents about starting Kindergarten late. There are lots of things that factor into that. Plus, I see no kids that are two years ahead (birthdays between September, 2001 and August, 2002).
If your on-age kid is really "elite," he should have no problem hanging with kids that have been held back, whatever the reason. I think most of the whining about holdbacks is from parents who think their kid is elite, but think holdbacks are pushing their kid out of D1 opportunities. I think there are a few legitimately concerned about safety... heck, my kid played on a team that played a lot of teams that had a bunch of holdbacks and was on-age, plus he was late-onset puberty. So I totally get the whole 4-10 attacker against the 6'2 pole in 8th grade. But he got better for it. And he'll get more academic money at a solid D3 school than many of these kids will get athletic money at D1 schools. So I'm OK with it.
