Junior achievement: K-State counting on transfers for revival

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Coming out of Dodge City (Kan.) Community College 20 years ago, Ron Prince, a spunky offensive lineman, just wanted that scholarship from Kansas State -- the lifeline that would take him 20 miles from his native Junction City to Manhattan.

"Coach Snyder didn't give me a scholarship," Prince said of legendary Bill Snyder, who transformed K-State from dust bunny to a national power in his 15 seasons. "I had no place to go."

K-State coach Ron Prince never forgot the worth of being a juco. (Getty Images)

Prince eventually hooked on with Appalachian State, playing for Jerry Moore, who would later become famous for winning I-AA national championships and beating Michigan. Prince's own coaching career took him to six college stops as well as four NFL teams during a league minority fellowship.

But Prince, the son of a military man, never forgot the worth of being a juco, or Kansas State.

There is a difference, though, between fondness for junior college players and what he is trying to pull off in his third season as the Wildcats head coach. Of sound mind and body, Prince deliberately went out and signed 19 junior college players, out of 32 total, in the Class of 2008.

His three recruiting classes have included an incredible 37 jucos.

And there are more student Princes to come.

"This," the coach said. "is a strategy for us."

A strategy that, at first glance, is reeking of more than a hint of desperation. Prince is coming off a 5-7 season, and the Big 12 North is improving around him by the day. His defense gave up 198 points in the final four games, the most in school history in a four-game span. And just recently, the AD who hired him, Tim Weiser, announced he is leaving to become a Big 12 deputy commissioner.

"For us, what seems like an act of desperation, we graduate these kids, they do well here," Prince said. "Mark my words you're going to see an increasing number of universities (do this)."

The past recruiting season started out with an emphasis on rebuilding that defense. The plan was to sign 12-15 jucos. The number grew when K-State landed a bumper crop at linebacker and receiver. K-State was particularly vulnerable in the front seven last season, so Prince went out and got six defensive linemen and four top-100 juco linebackers.

"Where they're at and the conference that they play in, they're going to have to go and look at the junior college ranks," said Jeff Chudy, the Bakersfield (Calif.) College coach who had four players signed by Prince in this latest class. "It's got to be hard to recruit against Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas."

Prince has that smartest-man-in-the-room air about him. That's part of the reason K-State hired the little-known offensive coordinator out of Virginia. He took a program that was on the slide at the end of the Snyder era and got it to a bowl game in 2006.

After perusing the roster at the time of his hiring, Prince predicted the 2007 downturn. While infusing the jucos, the program's Academic Progress Rate has improved from 924 (one-point below the NCAA-mandated cutoff line) to approximately 960. Last fall, according to Prince, 36 players had at least a 3.0 GPA. The opening day roster included at least 25 junior-college players.

To Prince, there is no other recruiting strategy for K-State. The program can sell a 70 percent graduation rate the past 18 years. That includes Snyder regime, which relied heavily (just not as much) on jucos. The in-state Jayhawk League is arguably the best football-playing juco conference in the country. Prince freely admits his program isn't going to attract four- and five-star players. K-State has to compete for the few top recruits in this sparsely populated state with Big 12 rival Kansas.

"Most people get involved at the community college level as a fill-in," Prince said. "It's a need thing. Very few programs have said, 'We are going to evaluate players coming out of community colleges that fill our need and depth on an ongoing basis.'"

The 19 jucos are believed to be the most ever signed by a current BCS-conference school. Then-Temple coach Bobby Wallace signed at least 19 in 2003 but only out of true desperation. The school had just been kicked out of the Big East. It was hard to recruit high school players when the school didn't know what conference it was going to be in.

"It is kind of like playing with dynamite," Wallace said, summing up the risk of signing massive amounts of jucos.

"You can get instant results by having some more mature kids who can help you right way. The biggest thing to juggle is the chemistry on your football team."

Junior college players are thought to be complementary, filling holes where a program might need help right away. But to base an entire recruiting philosophy on them? Prince says he cannot afford to identify 16-year-olds and hope for them to commit early. It's much easier to offer a scholarship to a 20-year-old who is more mature and grateful for the opportunity.

Example: K-State should start having an easier time getting in on big-time receivers. One of its few blue chips is junior-to-be quarterback Josh Freeman. Former walk-on Jordy Nelson became an All-American in 2007 and could rise to become a first-day draft prospect in April.

Junior college receivers Attrail Snipes and Brandon Banks were among the 19 playing for a Bakersfield team that finished 12-1 and played for the juco national championship. Banks, a 5-foot-8, 170-pound receiver from North Carolina, took that non-traditional route to K-State that Prince speaks of. Banks was referred to Chudy by the kid's AAU track coach, Ed Frazier, a former player for Steve Spurrier at Florida.

"At our level, he totally dominated," Chudy said.

"I don't know if anybody else in the country is doing this, but if you want to have the same talent as the people have, you have to develop your own," Prince said. "We have one of the most fascinating makeups of a team in the country."

Still, coaches must identify junior college talent, hope it pans out and then pray it doesn't bomb out in the classroom. Frequently, there's an academic reason players are in junior college in the first place.

Recent hikes in required high school core courses (from 14 to 16) have made it harder for players to become initially eligible. Junior-college athletes must have completed a percentage of a degree program each year to eligible to transfer. The three-year old APR penalizes schools for not maintaining an approximate 50 percent graduation rate.

Because jucos are usually out of the program in two years, a depth chart can potentially be ripped apart. At least with high school players, you have more time to train a replacement. With a juco, you'd better be right in terms of athletic and academic ability.

"For us they're graduating," Prince said. "It's not a foregone conclusion that just because a (junior college) player is enrolling in May or June he's not a good student. ... We're so into this world they're not all fitting in the same basket. All this is managing the cap."

"I would be like, 'Why 19 guys?'" said Brian Battle, Florida State's associate athletic director for compliance. "It would say to me as an administrator, 'Why aren't you recruiting high school guys?'"

Prince has heard the questions and is way ahead of the critics. Fourteen of his 19 jucos have three years to play two, in other words a redshirt year that can be used to improve a player both academically and athletically. That lessens the turnover burden. It also helps to have reliable jucos to turn to.

Bakersfield's Chudy had two players on K-State's 2003 Big 12 champion team.

"A lot of them are not NCAA Clearinghouse-approved," Chudy said. "A lot of them had something happen, whether they screwed up as a freshman. You have one bad semester, good luck trying to recover from that. We're there for a guy for whatever reason."

Prince was inspired by that coach who didn't take him 20 years ago. During those 15 seasons, Snyder quietly became one of the best juco recruiters in the country. The 1997 Kansas State class included 12 junior-college transfers that ended up being a foundation for the 1998 team that reached No. 1 for three weeks and finished 11-2.

"I'm not talking to you because I want the nation to know how to do it," Prince said. "(But) for our little slice of heaven, this is the equalizer with the big boys who have bigger budgets, bigger stadiums and pay their coaches more."