Report: Juco Football Planning Move to Spring 2021
No junior college football in 2020.
But the NJCAA apparently has big plans to play a spring season in 2021.
That’s according to a Sunday report from The Athletic’s Max Olson.
The NJCAA on Thursday announced its recommendation to move most of its sports to the spring. The NJCAA board of regents is expected to make it official during a meeting on Monday.
NJCAA president and CEO Christopher Parker confirmed to The Athletic that an eight-game spring football schedule is “the direction it would be heading in.
“We would like to play football this fall. But I think from a national perspective, moving it is probably the right decision holistically.”
The Athletic cited two unnamed head coaches as sources for Monday’s meeting.
The preliminary plan is to have an eight-game season, with practice starting on March 1 and the regular season lasting two months from the end of March to the end of May.
Coaches told The Athletic that the plan includes a six-week period for practices and scrimmages in the fall to allow recruiters opportunities to evaluate prospects.
If the current NCAA dead period is lifted, that is.
Mississippi State assistant coach Tony Hughes coached jucos for 10 years and told Olson it will be a challenge to evaluate prospects with no games.
“What it changes,” Hughes said, “is those mid-year December graduates who are evaluated on the fall season performance and who are not no-brainers going into the fall season but develop into a FBS players during the fall, are signed in December, are able to come into an FBS program in January and contribute or start or provide depth right away going into spring ball.”
To get the latest OU posts as they happen, join the SI Sooners Community by clicking “Follow” at the top right corner of the page (mobile users can click the notifications bell icon), and follow SI Sooners on Twitter @All_Sooners.
