Why don't we recruit junior college players? I've noticed

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Re: Why don't we recruit junior college players? I've noticed

Dec 29, 2013, 10:44 AM

Dabo wants JUCOs:

Dabo Swinney wants to recruit the next Cam Newton or Terrence Cody, but he can’t. The Clemson coach wants to recruit junior college stars to fill needs on the roster but qualifying benchmarks at Clemson typically prohibit the practice.

“It is a problem for us,” Swinney said. “It’s not that Clemson is saying you can’t come here, it’s that you have to meet degree percentage rules and you have to be able to transfer enough hours that will count toward a degree. The problem we’ve had is having a degree program that they can fit into and become eligible. Guys will be ineligible here and eligible elsewhere. We have very few places where we can count a bunch of electives.”

It places Clemson at a competitive disadvantage because many of its regional competitors, like South Carolina, Florida State and Georgia, are able to recruit junior college transfers. Swinney is hopeful some new curriculum options in 2013 at Clemson will allow the Tigers to enroll more JUCO players.

Swinney said he doesn’t want to rely on JUCO transfers to build a program, rather he would target “two or three” elite options when practical. Swinney has not signed a JUCO player during his tenure.

“I’m more of a build through the draft kind of guy,” Swinney said. “I’d never want to be one of these guys that (relies on JUCOs) and we don’t have to at Clemson. … But it’s an issue.”

http://www.postandcourier.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121016/PC20/121019431/1038/clemson-coach-dabo-swinney-wants-jucos-and-laughs-off-rankings

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Most - but not all - JUCO football and basketball players are at a JUCO because they were academic nonqualifiers. In fact, they were left taking the JUCO route because the postgrad prep school programs didn't think they could get them qualified in just a semester or two. Cam Newton and Nick Marshall are exceptions because they did qualify academically out of high school but wound up at JUCOs for off-field issues. I suspect Ibrahim Djambo is also an exception in that he may well have ended up at a JUCO due to English as a second (or third) language issues.

Supporters of JUCOs at Clemson will point to the fact that we take baseball players from Spartanburg Methodist among other junior colleges. Two things: most -but not all- JUCO baseball player have already qualified academically. They end up at junior colleges because there are many more talented baseball players than there are available D1 baseball scholarships. Secondly, Spartanburg Methodist happens to be one off the most academically rigorous junior colleges in the country while having one of the top JUCO baseball programs as well.

I think Dabo's comments are on target. It would be nice to be able to go after the right JUCO prospect from time to time. But, we are not Kansas State - a school with basically open enrollment that hands out P.E. degrees to anyone with a pulse. We certainly don't have to rely on JUCOs to field a strong football program. We aren't K-state. We are better than that.

Why don't we recruit junior college players? I've noticed

Re: Why don't we recruit junior college players? I've noticed

The issue with JUCOs at Clemson is graduation rates

if we (clemson) and we (the ACC) have higher academic

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