I was thinking about Hocker and Nico over the weekend - obviously they're incredibly talented but also making massive improvements in college at 18, 19y/o. Sanchez, Webb, GF, Derrick, and Fisher were outliers for having immediate, repeatable top-NCAA times and impact as a freshman, similar to Hocker/Young, but that was one guy every few years. Now the pace has picked up, no doubt in parallel with the depth of top-level HS talent/times.
I think of Jonathon Riley as an example of the many HS studs in the last 30 years with sub-4:10, sub-9 to their credit, who were slow to step down to sub-3:40 and sub-13:40 as they got into NCAA.
Obviously there is an adjustment to NCAA training load, new environment, etc. And obviously there are guys who just don't click, have injuries or are anomalies. But for the top-20 HS guys each year: what allows 1-3 of them, now, to suddenly run pro times at 18-19? What has changed that is allowing more and more HS studs to make immediate, large PR improvements right away?