Analysis of jucos and winning football teams
I found some articles on juco signings per football teams to see if signing jucos could really help win football games. The results were mixed. It appears that Big 12 teams primarily sign juco talent to improve their programs. This works from some such as KSU and Oklahoma State but not so well others such as Iowa State and Kansas. The most dominant programs such as Alabama, LSU, or Ohio State don't have more than 4 on their roster. The data appears to show that junior college transfers are usually only recruited heavily by lower tier schools and only work out some of the time. For Michigan to return to college football relevancy it is probably more important that we recruit 4/5 star high school senior talent like Ohio State, LSU, and Alabama do and save 2-3 spots on the 85 man roster for jucos to fill gaps like we had at last year in the OL, DBs under RR, or DL for Hoke's second season after losing Martin, Van Bergen, and Heininger. These articles don't account for oversigning which we should never do, transfers which we just got from USC or like Russell Wilson to Wisconsin. Probably not a sstainable option but if for example there's a 5th year grad transfer at qb like Russell Wilson for 2015 then by all means try to bring him in. There's also grayshirting which is sketchy if you try to do it to a bunch of people but if you have one lower heralded recruit like Pallante who wants to come to Michigan but you're also going after a guy like Dashawn Hand and both parties agree to it then it's fine I guess. http://www.onefootdown.com/2013/11/18/5094084/hittin-up-dem-juco-ranks http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/01/which_football_teams_sign_th…
December 8th, 2014 at 1:12 AM ^
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December 8th, 2014 at 1:22 AM ^
December 8th, 2014 at 1:26 AM ^
A post that's not about Harbaugh? Off topic.
No seriously, it wouldn't destroy our acedemic standards to accept a qualified juco player or two.
December 8th, 2014 at 1:33 AM ^
Hurry, before the spelling nazis attack.
December 8th, 2014 at 1:37 AM ^
Too late. Any attempt to correct my spelling woud be...academic.
December 8th, 2014 at 1:34 AM ^
December 8th, 2014 at 1:42 AM ^
Especially if Schlissel tries to turn us into the University of Chicago.
December 8th, 2014 at 7:53 AM ^
People seriously need to stop hammering the "Schlissel is going to de-emphasize athletics" conspiracy theory. The president of the university said academics are important (a view that's, you know, basically his job). That's it. There has been zero indication that he's considering downscaling the athletic department in any way, and it's insane to think that in his first year of his first tenure as president he would undertake such a massive and controversial initiative (especially one likely to alienate huge portions of the alumni/donor base).
As the poster you're replying to says (and as Don lays out HERE), the university on the whole tends not to accept JUCO transfers because of its very stringent standards for accepting transfer credits. This is true of the entire student population, not just athletes, and has been true for a long time and has nothing to do with any agenda from Schlissel.
December 8th, 2014 at 8:01 AM ^
This is not Ohio State. Student/atheletes come here to play school as well as to play football.
December 8th, 2014 at 9:11 AM ^
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December 8th, 2014 at 9:18 AM ^
Nothing's wrong with UChicago on the academic side. On the athletic front, we don't want 100 people watching former high school second stringers duking it out.
December 8th, 2014 at 1:41 AM ^
Yeah. If we didn't take any when we had true freshmen starting on our OL we're probably never going to take any. Honestly I don't understand what's wrong with taking 1 for every class. They probably have the same academic credentials as some of the recruits we pull in yearly.
December 8th, 2014 at 2:44 AM ^
December 8th, 2014 at 3:29 AM ^
I know a lot of people who aren't involved in sports that transfer from LCC, GRCC, or WCC to Michigan so I figured it would work for athletes, but you may be right.
December 8th, 2014 at 6:39 AM ^
The problem is they don't have any players. Most of the good Juco programs are at places where that will be an issue. The exception is California, but it's not easy to pull players from there, even Jucos.
The players still have to take the right classes. If they're at a Juco beause they're behind, they may not be taking enough university level classes to be eligible here. For example Michigan offers, at least used to offer, some zero credit classes in math. I knew someone who had to take 2 semesters of those before she could get into Math 115.
December 8th, 2014 at 9:07 AM ^
I think you may be a bit confused on the transfer rules. They don't have to be at a junior standing to transfer in, but the university will probably be reluctant to take them. If its at a rate of 1-2 per year with the coaches' support the university will likely grant them admission but they will be on thin ice.
December 8th, 2014 at 9:40 AM ^
to Juco becaused they weren't qualified out of HS. They have to earn 48 credit hours to be eligible if they transfer. If we're talking football that applies to pretty much every Juco player. The rare cases that were eligible out of HS can transfer early. That's common in baseball and we do take a fair number of those Jucos
December 8th, 2014 at 5:03 AM ^
The particular school/community I lived in was were Auburn's Nick Marshall had played his JUCO ball. While I was down there in bfe one of my side jobs on top of teaching was covering local sporting events at a local AM sports radio station. I had an opportunity to interview Nick before they played their 'bowl game' in Biloxi, Mississippi. Nice guy, but not exactly the brightest bulb. To be fair the interview was not vey long (under four minutes) but you could tell he was not the most articulate. Interviewed several others that I had a very similar experience with.
I always asked myself, "would these guys ever be accepted to a school like Michigan?". Despite the fact I haven't seen their transcripts, I am convinced that the vast majority of these guys could not be seriously considered by Michigan. However, other B1G schools looked at some of these kids rather often. I know I had seen Minnesota, Nebraska, and Indiana all at various games throughout the season along with Kansas state, Texas tech, Oklahoma state, Wyoming and Colorado state. On top of those programs I also saw a slew of SEC schools, including but not limited to Arkansas, Auburn and Georgia.
These JUCO programs have a great deal of talent. The starters could clearly play D1 ball from a talent perspective. Some of the backups in the weight room made me laugh though. Some looked like they couldn't play on a high school team. Overall, I would say we should tread lightly with the idea of JUCO transfers. The better route would probably be to accept transfers if their credits in fact transfer over.
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December 8th, 2014 at 5:51 AM ^
and the reason there's never any JUCO transfers on the Michigan football team is the same reason there are very few junior/community college transfers among the general student population here: for better or worse, U-M has very stringent standards for the acceptance of JUCO credits. For the average student attending a community or junior college, a very small fraction of their credit hours will be accepted by UM. If only 25% of your two years' worth of community college credits are accepted by UM, you ain't getting admitted.
To have a decent chance of transferring from a junior/community college to Michigan, you essentially need to attend an institution that specifically designs its academic offerings with the goal of credit hours being accepted by UM. Relatively few community colleges do that, and the ones that do are almost entirely in the state of Michigan.
December 8th, 2014 at 9:23 AM ^
My daughter is in HS and is also taking classes at OCC to get ahead of the game and save dear old dad a few bucks later on.
OCC is good about making sure their credits are accepted at M (and other Michigan schools), but we still have to check before she signs up for a class. Because she's going to M if she likes it or not.
Realistically, the only JUCOs that could get into M would have to come from a local school.
December 8th, 2014 at 12:44 PM ^
Their credits have a good chance of being accepted here too.
December 8th, 2014 at 6:23 AM ^
December 8th, 2014 at 7:55 AM ^
He came from the ACC.
December 8th, 2014 at 9:13 AM ^
Yeah, I've gone to a Michigan baseball game and we had some jucos starting. It must be because of where they came from their credits transferred.
December 8th, 2014 at 9:39 AM ^
Michigan has 4 JC transfers on this year's baseball roster:
Cody Bruder (Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, CA), Michael McNicholl (Barstow Community College), Kendall Patrick (Black Hawk College in Moline, IL), Jackson Glines (Fresno City College).
Whatever it is keeping JC transfers off the football roster, it is neither University nor Athletic Department policy.
December 8th, 2014 at 12:08 PM ^
I have been one of the people who have been constantly bewildered by the fact that UM football doesn't take 1-2 JUCOs a year, and people keep saying, "That's just not possible" b/c of U of M's transfer credit rules.
If so, how the heck did UM baseball get four out-of-state players? I know 3 are from CA, which tend (generalizing here) to be stronger academically, But overall, I don't understand why Purdue, Mich State, Florida, Cal-Berkeley, Indiana, UT-Austin, and Illinois are able to academically handle OL in 2013-2014 from JUCOs, but U of M somehow can't.
I have to think it is a (small) example of UM's "this is the way we've done things, so we'll keep just doing that" mentaliity that has failed UM over the past decade. Hoke et al in 2012 should have looked at the OL depth chart and thought a bit outside the UM box and figured out which JUCOs *could* get thru UM's process (they exist; they're not unicorns), and if anyone needed advising help, provide that assistance so they are taking the right classes.
We need to figure this out. We can do so and keep our academic standards. UM needs to use all the tools in the tool chest and not just dismiss options for players categorally every year w/o examining them closely.