Below we will be discussing if you should play JUCO football after your senior year of high school. I hope this can help!
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So I think JUCO is a great option for a lot of players who maybe didn’t get a lot of high school varsity time- whether they got injured or had to sit on the bench for 2-3 years before they got their shot. But you need to know this about JUCO. JUCO, or “junior college” or “community college” is still college football and it is the same schedule as college football. Yes you’re not playing the same level of competition as D1 or D2 schools but it’s the same workload. So don’t go in there thinking it will be like high school. It’s very different from high school, yes you want to win, but everyone is there for their own PERSONAL gain. AKA to get a scholarship to a bigger D1 or D2 school. So it doesn’t have the “team first” attitude of your high school program. It’s a business. Which is fine, I just want you to know that. Now, JUCO is a tough path like I said. When you play junior college football you lose 1-2 of your 4 years of eligibility. Junior college is where you can earn an associates degree- so that is a max of 2 years at that school. I know COVID gave some guys some extra time, but usually that’s what you get. So let’s say you play at a junior college freshman and sophomore year of college, then you only have 2 years remaining when you transfer to a bigger school. You can also greyshirt at a JUCO, but that’s another conversation. Usually kids do that who need to develop a little more, get bigger etc. The grey shirt keeps an extra year of eligibility football wise, while you can still attend classes. Now, this kind of sucks that you lose eligibility in JUCO but colleges who recruit players from JUCOs expect them to have a shot to play right away. Usually if you go straight to a D1, you do not play right away anyways. I think JUCO is a much cheaper route than walking on & quite frankly it’s easier than walking on. At the end of the day it’s your decision but I recommend JUCO first.
Another option is something called a “prep school”. Very popular on the East Coast. It’s a private school where you essentially take a year between high school and college. They have football teams there and other athletic teams. This is what IMG Academy offers also. This option is the best to me because you get an extra year of development and don’t lose NCAA eligibility time. However, you’re gonna need about $50,000 for tuition if you don’t obtain a scholarship to one of these schools. And I do realize that’s a ton of money for an education. So those are your options, at the end of the day it’s your decision but I want to make sure you all know the choices you have.
