Would we better to rely heavily on Juco players?

[Dental Dawg]

Reading an earlier thread got me thinking. The best teams MSU had fielded in 2 decades had some very key Juco players. I have been told that it is best to develope talent from high school rather than Juco. Being that Mississippi lacks a large number of quality high school recruits and has a plethora of junior colleges, would it not be best to rely heavily on junior college players to get the ball rolling? Kansas State University did this for years and had a great deal of success. They have a similar situation as us. Few quality athletes and several good junior colleges.

 

[Buford T. Justice]

I think you use JUCO when you have holes and can get an impact player to fill it. I am thinking 5-6 per year. McPhee, Berry, Brauchle, Hutchens come to mind. Good players in need areas. I think we look for a JUCO offensive lineman or two. Anytime you can get a cover corner from private school, public school, JUCO, prison, daycare, anywhere you take him.

 

[Coach34]

they come in, fit a hole we have, and are usually 2 and out....we are somewhat handicapped in our state by non-qualifiers, so replacing these guys with juco's seems the smart move to me

**edited to add**- where Jackie went wrong was by bringing in too many of those guys in a 2 year period and counting on them to play. When alor of them turned out to be busts, he was stuck with gaping holes that couldnt be filled.

 

[coursesuper]

only,unless they are all world. 6'6" 300 DT. The rest need to come in for spring to be able to play and play well in the fall

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

that where (position) you get them is also key.

As you can see from the other thread, our entire D-Line was basically built from JUCO. I think a key is to not monopolize an entire position like that, then you really get left with a gap of depth and experience.

These are the JUCO positions I would like to see us fill next year:

1 LB (not encouraged by what we have behind Jamar, I think we can move White to MLB though)
1 CB (obviously)
1 DL (because it never hurts and they are much easier to find/project in JUCO than in HS)
1 OG (would prefer to fill this slot over OT. with a healthy T. Smith, a stud here would make a big difference)
1 Cameron Newton

We already have Rashod Henry coming in. He should be a dangerous player for us.

 

[Columbus Dawg]

Juco's are great for corners because it's so hard to evaluate corners out of high school.

The other key position is DL because a lot of the top d-linemen don't qualify out of high school.

You never want to be in a position where you are banking on juco's because they can totally destroy the chemistry of your team, but it's crucial at MSU that we sign anywhere from 3 to 7 every year.

 

[futaba.79]

mistake, aside from what you noted, was putting some of these guys at the top of the depth chart before they ever set foot on campus. He lost his '01 veterans and never got them back.

Imagine going through spring training and being listed no. 1 at your spot. Then coming to camp in August and seeing that you'd been bumped down by a guy you've never even met. That happened to a few guys.