JuCo No Mo': How The Transfer Portal Killed The Junior College Ranks
You won't find any more Cam Newtons in JuCo these days.
If you want another example of how an unfettered transfer portal has ruined college football, I have one word for you: JuCo.
Technically, it's two words (Junior College) but the point remains the same.
Unfortunately, with how out of control the transfer portal has gotten in recent years, it has completely nuked one of the institutions that used to be a pipeline for kids who either didn't receive the exposure they needed in high school, didn't have the grades to make it to a major university, or got into some trouble and needed a way back.
We all remember Cam Newton's journey from five-star high school quarterback to "next-in-line" at Florida. Then a bit of trouble landed him at Blinn Junior College before he finally settled at Auburn, with the rest, of course, being history.
Other feel-good stories about JuCo players becoming stars in college and the NFL include guys like Alvin Kamara and Stetson Bennett, just to name a few.
These days, when power programs need a ready-made college kid with more experience, they plunder the Group of 5 schools and lower ranked Power 4 programs, leaving many JuCo players without a proper home.
The point of junior college was to be a stepping stone rather than a destination; a way for kids to springboard back into the big-time ranks of college football, but many are now doing the opposite, as they enter the transfer portal and are forced to go to junior college after not being picked up.
In 2015, 43 of the top 50 JuCo players ended up at power programs, while that number dropped to 33 just a decade later, with many more players going completely unsigned.
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It's not just hurting the players, either.
G5 schools have now become "feeder programs" for the big boys of college football, having their rosters routinely plundered at their expense.
JuCo programs were made specifically to send their best and brightest stars onto the next level of collegiate sports, so the fact that now schools like Tulane and James Madison are left holding the bag while junior college success stories go the way of the dinosaur is troubling.
The sport of college football as we know it is dying.
Some of the signs are obvious, but others are more subtle, and I believe the death of JuCo is one of the more understated blows to our beloved sport.
There's no putting this genie back in the bottle, we just have to accept it and move on as best we can.