Who Needs High School

[StevensTechU]

Pardon the ambiguous thread title, but I noticed something that I thought was interesting while perusing 247's rankings of the top JUCO players in the country (https://247sports.com/Season/2020-Footb ... iorCollege), a list that features Oregon visitor Bennett Williams at #9 and Oregon commit TJ Bass at #54.

As I scrolled down the list, what stuck out pretty quickly is that Mississippi State, a traditional bottom feeder in the Southeastern Conference, has gone all-in on recruiting JUCO players. To date, they've received commitments from #3, #4, #11, #14, #26, #27, #29, #40, and #42. Nine JUCO commits, among a class that currently sits at 23 commitments.

At Oregon, we've seen JUCO players used to supplement positions of need in the short-term, to varying degrees of success. However, we've never seen large-scale deployment (1/3 - 1/2 of a class), and the closest thing I can think of in the conference is OSU during the Chad Johnson/DeLawrence Grant year, but I don't know how many other guys besides them and TJ were JUCOs.

I'm very interested to see how this will turn out for MSU. Just a random observation and fodder for discussion.

[lukeyrid13]

Kansas state had success going all in on the juco players as well.

It’s very hard to build depth and continuity in only two years. I think 1-2 players is fine as a stopgap but it’s very difficult to sustain success in that regard.

[UOducksTK1]

It would make a little more sense if football players could leave after their freshman years. But if you could have a HS player spend 3-4 years at your school, I would much rather prefer that over a JC.