Interesting note regarding UAB's turnaround

[Harry]

I was perusing the Southern Miss forum and there was a thread about UAB and how they were able to turn things around so quickly. As it turns out they signed 15 jucos last year! Anyway, I thought that was interesting. One of them is the QB Cody Clements who originally signed with Washington State. Here's a link to their signing class:

http://www.uabsports.com/signingday/

And here's the discussion on the USM site:

http://eaglepost.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=38244

[Harry]

As a comparison -- UNT has 6 juco transfers on their entire roster.

[SSP]

I'm pretty sure I predicted this before the season started in another thread....

[Ben Gooding]

JUCO's can step in and fill voids quickly and at times even add legit threats to your team. We need JUCO DL and to be honest maybe a QB to give us a couple quality years to get DW/Means developed and fully ready.

[FirefightnRick]

Oh I thought the "Interesting note about UAB" would be how their first year head coach Bill Clark had only been a college head coach for one year..(Jacksonville State), before taking the UAB job, then a defensive coordinator the 5 years before that at (South Alabama).. and a high school coach the 9 years before that. And how in only his second year as a college head coach took someone else's 2-10 team and kicked our ass with it?

That's a note I thought was the most interesting.

Rick

Edited October 17, 2014 by FirefightnRick

[greenminer]

Oh I thought the "Interesting note about UAB" would be how their first year head coach Bill Clark had only been a college head coach for one year..(Jacksonville State), before taking the UAB job, then a defensive coordinator the 5 years before that at (South Alabama).. and a high school coach the 9 years before that. And how in only his second year as a college head coach took someone else's 2-10 team and kicked our ass with it?

That's a note I thought was the most interesting.

Rick

It was humiliating. The next question needs to be: is this season an exception to Mac's upward trend and/or, can Clark build on this at UAB?

[Got5onIt]

I posted this in another thread, but NT needs to focus heavily on JUCO transfers & out of state high school recruits for a minimum of 5 years. Establish consecutive winning seasons and force people to change their minds about NTs dedication to football....

[meangreenbob]

Thank you FFR for the your common sense post. It's like a breath of fresh air in an environment of smoke and mirrors.

[UNT90]

We need a JUCO QB next year.

I don't think there is a legitimate FBS QB in this roster at this point.

Four years into the DMac era...

[meangreendork]

Having a good number of JUCOs isn't a bad idea. Helps establish a strong record for a few years while finding good high school players for the long term. Ideally you go from 10-15 JUCOs and then scale down as your team builds a solid record over a few years.

[MeanGreenTexan]

We need a JUCO QB next year.

I don't think there is a legitimate FBS QB in this roster at this point.

Four years into the DMac era...

We've brought in 2 (3 if you count Berglund) so far during McCarney's tenure. And they've all been terrible.

[VideoEagle]

The problem with juco transfers is they quickly hurt you total scholarship player numbers. You can only bring in X players a year, I think it's 15 but I'm not sure. Loading up on juco players more that one year at a time means you are not going to be able to maintain a full compliment of scholarship players. But they can be a quick, single year fix. You have to get the right ones and tends to be a crapshoot.

[untbowler]

We need a JUCO QB next year.

I don't think there is a legitimate FBS QB in this roster at this point.

Four years into the DMac era...

We have a JUCO QB on the team and have had one for the last 4 yrs and they all have stunk to high heaven

As for JUCO players in general funny the same fans asking for it, ripped Dodge to shreds 4 yrs ago because it depleted the cupboard for DMessiah

[untbowler]

The problem with juco transfers is they quickly hurt you total scholarship player numbers. You can only bring in X players a year, I think it's 25 but I'm not sure. Loading up on juco players more that one year at a time means you are not going to be able to maintain a full compliment of scholarship players. But they can be a quick, single year fix. You have to get the right ones and tends to be a crapshoot.

Bolded/Fixed

[SilverEagle]

We need a JUCO QB next year.

I don't think there is a legitimate FBS QB in this roster at this point.

Four years into the DMac era...

Wie have one already. What we need is someone besides the coach who went after Greer to do the assessing and recruiting.

[UNT90]

Wie have one already. What we need is someone besides the coach who went after Greer to do the assessing and recruiting.

I agree, and wonder if we just might see that before spring practice next year.

[TheColonyEagle]

Mac made it pretty clear when he got here he was going to build this program with high school recruits.

We can all judge the results so far.....

Most coaches start going heavy juco when they get a little pressure to win now.....if we win 4 games this year, we might see more jucos next year.

Would love to see some on the D Line.

[Ben Gooding]

Yeah, we have a juco QB. The coach that brought him here will be gone after the season ends. Our new OC can file through the folder of juco QB's and pick him one bc we need one, badly.

We also need a JUCO safety and D-tackle. Maybe a couple.

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

We've discussed this before. JUCOs are a double-edged sword.

If you sign too many, you have to keep signing them because:

(1) you only have the for a couple of years, and so

(2) once they are gone, no one behind them has developed

Kansas State does well because they are committed to signing a bunch of them every year. But, if you sign too many - or, too many at one position - you mess up your depth.

It's a feast or famine thing with JUCOs. For the most part, they are at a JUCO for a reason: grades. And, not everyone of them is even able to navigate the minefield of JUCO academics.

I'm all for signing JUCOs when absolutely necessary. To fill glaring holes, for instance. But, I think you can end of mortgaging a program's future by signing too many too often.

The thing is, there is nothing like getting kids from high school who can be developed, and are disciplined enough to stick with you.

Congrat to UAB for beat us, but...there's a lot of season left.

Edited October 17, 2014 by The Fake Lonnie Finch

[Ben Gooding]

Well, let's Kansas State our program for a few years. We have glaring holes that need to be filled. In 4 years we haven't brought in hardly any JUCOS. We need them this up coming season and tbh maybe the next 2 seasons.

[JesseMartin]

With that many JUCOs I'm thinking he probably figured he'd trike gold with at least a couple and it would buy him a year of time to work on recruiting without many, if any, solid HS commitments. If that's the case it's actually not a bad strategy, since sometimes new coaches don't have a ton of time to go after high school seniors after they've already been picked over. But I wouldn't assume it would work well on a regular basis since after a while you'll only have JUCO transfers and no regular recruits! What a coaching nightmare to have that level of turnover all the time in addition to having to work on any bad mechanics or other poor habits with sometimes only a year or two of production. I don't care what sport it is, that would be terrible!

[greenit]

With all the defections in the first couple of classes, kind of surprising we did not use more Juco recruits to replace their spots on the roster in order to keep the graduating classes evened out.

[SSP]

With all the defections in the first couple of classes, kind of surprising we did not use more Juco recruits to replace their spots on the roster in order to keep the graduating classes evened out.

Outside of QB- what positions are you referring to? Curious.

[Ben Gooding]

I'll answer for him. Safety, defensive tackle(s) and a QB (with an OC that knows how to evaluate talent). Throwing in a DE wouldn't have hurt either. Fill those 3-5 voids with average to good production and we have a very solid football team right now. GMG, beat Southern Piss!

[greenit]

I have not looked at the specific numbers, but on the surface it seems like we lost quite a few players out of those first few classes. My comment was based around matching up those loses with juco/transfer replacements in order to keep the graduating classes reasonably even and to keep the total scholarship players at 85. Ben hits the areas where we seem to have lost the most.