JUCO ROUTE

[Mean Green 93-98]

SERIOUSLY.............We've had 8 losing seasons in a row for a reason, folks, and during that time we also saw an SBC program with less than a $10 million "total" athletic budget (ULM) go "Beep! Beep" past us (while beating #8 ranked Arkansas last Fall,too) and a main reason that happened with that one school from Monroe, LA, has been the main theme or topic on this message board the last 24 hours, namely...................R-E-C-R-U-I-T-I-N-G !

I enjoyed your post immensely. . . . but recruiting has nothing to do with ULM's success. Actually, they have not had a higher-ranked recruiting class than North Texas in any year since 2007, when they barely edged us out. Even this year, our class outranks them.

Not to say that your general point isn't a good one, it just can't be made with ULM. But you have a boatload of other schools to make it with.

[GrandGreen]

Well, I am afraid that your conclusion is incorrect regarding the Jayhawk Conference being the best Juco football conference "out there". The numbers do not support your conclusion.

Since the 2006 season the first game of each season's football schedule has been devoted to the Kansas Juco teams playing the teams from the Southwest Junior College Football Conference (NEO, Trinity Valley, Kilgore, Tyler, Navarro, Cisco, Blinn).

The SWJCFC teams have won the majority of those games every season except for 2010 ( when Jayhawk teams won 4 games and SWJCFC teams won 3 games).

The SWJCFC leads the overall series 31 games to 19 over the seven seasons since 2006 (Arkansas Baptist was a member of the SWJCFC for one year - 2009 - and defeated Highland of Kansas that one year in the conference).

Good Juco football is played in Kansas, and in Mississippi, but the SWJCFC does not take a backseat to anyone.

GMG

The best state football juco system and by far the largest is California. Mississippi, Texas and Kansas combined don't have as many football playing jucos as California. The individual teams outside of California may be better but for number of fb division recruits, California rules.

[tylermeangreen]

The best state football juco system and by far the largest is California. Mississippi, Texas and Kansas combined don't have as many football playing jucos as California. The individual teams outside of California may be better but for number of fb division recruits, California rules.

In numbers of teams, you are right - California has a huge number of jucos playing football - an unbelievable number in today's reality of tight finances.

As for head-to-head competition, we will probably never know which state/conference has the superior jucos on the football field since it is unlikely that the three named states, Kansas, Mississippi and Texas (+NEO), will ever play teams from the California conferences (because of finances if for no other reason).

However, the statement that was made in the original posting was that the Jayhawk Conference was THE superior Juco conference, and since the Jayhawk Conference HAS played the Southwest Junior College Football Conference head-to-head over the past seven seasons, conjecture in that posting was replaced by fact in mine - at least in head-to-head competition.

Edited February 8, 2013 by tylermeangreen

[JesseMartin]

On the California issue...with the highest population in the USA, as well as the fact that JuCos are built as a business even more than the rest of the higher ed system, it's not surprising that their total number is higher. But when you consider the per capita output, it's not really an excessively high statistic.

Also, on the overall topic: on one hand, it's not a good idea to just take them for the sake of having someone who played college ball...the key is taking guys who have played, even at that level, a pretty good, solid game. And the guys we have seem to be the second type. I wouldn't cheer for grabbing anybody just because they've had JuCo experience, but if they've played well, are committed to taking a step up athletically and academically...then go for it.

On the sub-topic of transfers...when was the last time we had this many guys leave big-conference teams to come to North Texas...all in the same year? It seems like a lot to me but hey, you guys know some of the history better than I do. Overall, things look pretty positive from here...but I'm in the desert, so you know...perspective

[casual fan]

It seems to me that there was no reason to recruit a lot of JUCOS the first two clasess because they would have already been gone by now. When JUCOS were not signed, it left a gaping hole with last year's seniors because of the number of JUCOS signed in 2010. By signing several, plus a few transfers this year, Mac should have more upper classmen this year and next year than he has had since he has been here. I hardly think this was done on accident.

+1

McCarney had his hands tied from the get go. When a coach takes a bunch of jucos in back to back years it's an obvious act of desperation. A school can only sign a max of 24 scholarships each year and most jucos will have only 2 years to play.

Dodge took 17 jucos (I didn't look up the number of transfers) his last 2 years.

It created a hole. McCarney seems to have worked his way through it as he said we will finally be back up to a full 85 scholarships this fall.

[Mean Green 93-98]

McCarney had his hands tied from the get go. When a coach takes a bunch of jucos in back to back years it's an obvious act of desperation. A school can only sign a max of 24 scholarships each year and most jucos will have only 2 years to play.

Dodge took 17 jucos (I didn't look up the number of transfers) his last 2 years.

It created a hole. McCarney seems to have worked his way through it as he said we will finally be back up to a full 85 scholarships this fall.

If his hands were tied, why didn't he sign more Jucos his first class than he did this class? And if signing more Juco players is a sign of desperation, and if things were so desperate when he got here, what does that say that he's signing more Jucos/taking in more transfers now?

By the way, the limit is 25 schollies per class.

[casual fan]

If his hands were tied, why didn't he sign more Jucos his first class than he did this class? And if signing more Juco players is a sign of desperation, and if things were so desperate when he got here, what does that say that he's signing more Jucos/taking in more transfers now?

By the way, the limit is 25 schollies per class.

If you are short handed scholarship wise, you don't want to compound the problem by signing a bunch of jucos that will only be here for 2 years.

For argument's sake, if you were to sign 25 jucos to scholarships one year you would have no freshmen, if you did it 2 years in a row, you would end up with no freshmen or sophomores. What happens the next two years since you can only sign 25 in a given year? Keep doing it and you could end up with a team of only 50 players on scholarship. To fix it you end up with a very young team with no depth for a couple of years.

McCarney said UNT will finally have it's full allotment of scholarships back this fall. Dodge left a scholarship mess beyond just signing a bunch of jucos.

[Mean Green 93-98]

If you are short handed scholarship wise, you don't want to compound the problem by signing a bunch of jucos that will only be here for 2 years.

For argument's sake, if you were to sign 25 jucos to scholarships one year you would have no freshmen, if you did it 2 years in a row, you would end up with no freshmen or sophomores. What happens the next two years since you can only sign 25 in a given year? Keep doing it and you could end up with a team of only 50 players on scholarship. To fix it you end up with a very young team with no depth for a couple of years.

McCarney said UNT will finally have it's full allotment of scholarships back this fall. Dodge left a scholarship mess beyond just signing a bunch of jucos.

I think we all understand the math with Jucos. But the point is, Coach Mac didn't feel when he got here that he needed to plug in gaps with Jucos. He had the luxury of building the team exactly the way he wanted to build it, by signing almost entirely high school players and then redshirting a bunch of them. So what do you mean when you say, "His hands were tied"? What couldn't he do that he wanted to do?

And again, since you say signing Jucos is an obvious act of desperation, is Coach Mac's rise in Juco signings a sign of desperation?

[buff64]

With the new academic requirements in place, more and more high schools players will go the JC route. This will make recruiting the JC kids much more important . It will be interesting to see how many HS kids will find at the last minute this year that they not eligible to accept scholarships to 4 yr. Schools.

[CurveItAround]

I agree that Mac had the option of signing some JUCOS in his first couple of classes to replace outgoing JUCOS. When he chose not to, it created a hole in last year's team with juniors and seniors on the team. With this year's class, we are instantly adding 5 incoming juniors from JUCO and 2 incoming juniors from xfers plus 1 sophmore (Berglund) via xfer. It will definitely give us more upperclassmen that will be expected to play right away that if those same scholarships would have been used on HS recruits that would have likely redshirted.

With this being Mac's 3rd year, I think he has targeted this as a key year from the beginning and is trying to have as many options as possible, which is why it makes sense to try to add some instant upper classmen to the HS recruits he has been molding over the last couple of years into upper classmen.

Personally, I get the feeling that there is a sense of urgency within the staff to get it done this year and next. I believe there has been a concerted effort to position this team for its best opportunity to win in the next two years (3rd and 4th of Mac's tenure). A lot will be riding on the next couple of years. I am certainly pulling for them to be successful.

The approach of adding upper classmen in the 3rd and 4th years of a coach's tenure is hardly an original idea. I like a lot of the pieces that have been added in advance of next season. Let's just hope this crop of players and coaches can get it done.

[foutsrouts]

Just think how low this class would be thought of w/o the Juco's and transfers. I don't think DM had any other choice but to go in that direction, and I personally am counting on those guys to play a big part in sending us to a .500 or better season. This is obviously a crucial year for everyone involved.

[casual fan]

I think we all understand the math with Jucos. But the point is, Coach Mac didn't feel when he got here that he needed to plug in gaps with Jucos. He had the luxury of building the team exactly the way he wanted to build it, by signing almost entirely high school players and then redshirting a bunch of them. So what do you mean when you say, "His hands were tied"? What couldn't he do that he wanted to do?

And again, since you say signing Jucos is an obvious act of desperation, is Coach Mac's rise in Juco signings a sign of desperation?

Would you rather he had signed a bunch of jucos his first year? They would now be gone along with the 17 jucos Dodge signed his last 2 years. Now that he has worked through the scholarship problem he can take some jucos. He has a ton of rs freshmen and rs sophomores which will be around for the next 3-4 years. So adding some jucos now makes total sense.

[foutsrouts]

You have to establish a winning program in order to bring in good recruits. JuCo players help do that with the ability to immediately contribute. I never quite understood why NT is not recruiting more JuCo players to get that quick shot to the arm this program is so desperate for.

Exactamundo.

[foutsrouts]

Would you rather he had signed a bunch of jucos his first year? They would now be gone along with the 17 jucos Dodge signed his last 2 years. Now that he has worked through the scholarship problem he can take some jucos. He has a ton of rs freshmen and rs sophomores which will be around for the next 3-4 years. So adding some jucos now makes total sense.

Exactamundo once again.

[Mean Green 93-98]

Would you rather he had signed a bunch of jucos his first year? They would now be gone along with the 17 jucos Dodge signed his last 2 years. Now that he has worked through the scholarship problem he can take some jucos. He has a ton of rs freshmen and rs sophomores which will be around for the next 3-4 years. So adding some jucos now makes total sense.

Nope, not at all. And I'm glad his hands weren't tied forcing him to do that. I'm just sick of all the whining and excuse making, which our exchange shows that's largely what it is. I haven't given up on Coach Mac, but it's time to put up.

Edited February 11, 2013 by Mean Green 93-98