JUCO stands for junior college, which is a two-year college that offers an opportunity for student-athletes to play football while improving their academics, developing physically, and gaining experience competing against older, more challenging football players. JUCO football teams are feeder programs for powerhouse D1 college football teams. JUCO football is a way for players who are ruled academically ineligible at a higher level to keep playing college football. It is also a place to go for players whose teams have booted them for disciplinary reasons. Others might go to JUCO out of high school in an attempt to draw interest from Division I scouts.
There are 65 JUCO football teams in the United States, classified into the following JUCO football conferences: Independent, Iowa Community College Athletic Conference, Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference, Minnesota Athletic Conference, Mississippi Association of Junior & Community Colleges, Northeast Football Conference, Southwest Junior College Football Conference, and Western. The National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) serves as the national governing body for two-year college athletics in the United States and is the nation’s second-largest national intercollegiate sports organization (second to the NCAA). These colleges compete at either the NJCAA Division I (DI), Division II (DII), or Division III (DIII) levels.
Attending a JUCO is recommended for student-athletes looking to further advance their knowledge of the sport, further train to get their bodies in peak performance, or get used to strength and conditioning routines for collegiate programs. Time spent at a JUCO often makes for a much more developmentally advanced recruit.
