Ducks Attack Message Board Forum

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.

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.

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.