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Georgia Coach Mark Richt Shows Junior College Can Get You Recruited

Junior college can help athletes in all sports get a little more experience prior to attending a four-year school. For some athletes in certain sports, like football and to some extent basketball, junior college can be a necessary stepping stone to playing in the NCAA.

Some Coaches Really Like Junior College Athletes

Georgia football coach Mark Richt recently went on record discussing his proclivity for recruiting junior college athletes.Georgia’s recruiting class this year consists of 28 athletes, four of them being junior college transfers. Junior college transfers can help a program out in several ways; according to Richt, it gives depth to your recruiting class by breaking up the ages of incoming athletes. It also allows coaches to upgrade positions immediately by bringing in athletes that are ready to play much sooner than incoming freshmen. Obviously there are still plenty of freshman athletes that come in and help programs win immediately, but junior college transfers are usually more mature.

Junior College Shouldn’t be Everyone’s First Option

However, junior college shouldn’t necessarily be an athlete’s first choice when thinking about recruiting in high school; there are some negatives to trying to get recruited out of junior college. In fact, Richt has a clause in his contract that states he must keep his recruiting of junior college players to a minimum- meaning some coaches are restricted in actually recruiting junior college athletes. Schools don’t want to get stuck in cycles of recruiting only junior college athletes because they usually only have two years of eligibility left, sometimes three. If it comes down to two athletes with equal athletic ability, one a junior college athlete and the other a high school senior, the college coach will likely choose the high school senior over the junior college transfer, because the senior has more eligibility left.

What You Need to Know to Transfer

If you are a junior college student, or a high school athlete considering junior college, you should look at our Junior College Transfer page. Getting recruited from a junior college is not always easy, but the same goes for recruiting in general. Knowing the landscape of junior college recruiting before you decide to attend a junior college will help you find the best opportunity possible to continue your athletic and academic career.

Do you have any questions about what it takes to attend junior college or to transfer to a four year school? Let us know in the comments section below, or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+!


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