Top 20 Junior College Baseball Programs

Hey, how you doing? Alex here. Thanks for joining me. In today's video, we're going to be looking at the top 20 D1 juco baseball programs in the country. The very best of the best at the juco level. And why should we consider juco? Well, we're going to take a look at some of those reasons why it could be a really good fit for you. But before we get into that, in the top 20, my name is Alex Swinson. If you're new to my channel, I'm a former Division 1 college baseball coach, Scott out and recruiter. And now what I do is help high school baseball athletes go through this college recruiting process and really help them find the best college fit for them. So let's talk a little bit about juco. I just actually had one of the guys that I helped go through my program, Connor, he went juco and now he's playing at a Division 1 school. It's actually an ivy league school, Penn, and was just a really good fit for him. Even as a high academic guy. He went juco because he just needed a little bit more time to develop. And that could be a big reason why juco could be a good fit. Because as you guys might or might not know, juco is a max of two years. You could go for two years and then you transfer out to a four year school. Okay, so again, a good option for some if you fall in this category, if you just need a little bit more time to develop athletically, maybe even academically and then also with grades, if you need to get your GPA up or even take a test score, that can be a good option for you because you can transfer after one year or you can transfer after two years. So Connor transferred after just one year. But there's also an option. A lot of guys transfer after two years because college coaches will watch Division 1 schools, will watch junior college players. They might have watched them in high school and they see, all right, he's going to go to juco. That's great. We're going to continue to watch him and then maybe could transfer out to their school if it's a good fit for their methodology, good fit for their what they're looking for at that particular position. Another good reason why juco could be a good option is you can save a lot of money going to juco. It makes a lot of sense from just a financial perspective to go juco because if you go juco for two years comparatively go two years out of the four year institution, definitely private school it is a lot cheaper to go juco. So a lot of people, guys will go JUCO for two years, transfer and then go to a four year institution. And that two years saved them a lot of money of tuition where they didn't have to pay for the four year school. And they're still on track to graduate for four a year. So that is a really good option from a financial standpoint. Then scholarship opportunities. Division 1 JUCOs have scholarship. If they're fully funded, they can have up to 24 athletic scholarships, which is great. And it's usually on average a Division 1 school, on average scholarships around 25%. That's a lot higher at the JUCO level because they just have more scholarships. So also a lot of playing opportunities in the fall and spring because there's not as many restrictions, if you will, for playing time. NCAA at the Division 1 level and even Division 2 level, they really constrained so you they're not playing and practicing all the time. JUCO is not as strenuous on that end as far as restricting. So you're able to play in the fall. You play a lot of games in the fall, you practice a lot in the fall, you play a lot of games in the spring. You practice a lot obviously in the spring. So there's a lot of just ways to develop, which is a really good thing. And then obviously D1, D2s and D3s recruit out of juco after one year, after two years. So a lot of good options, a lot of good reasons why it could be a good fit. And then just use this list to see if you might fall in that category from a junior college level. Like timing of this. JUCO is usually on the back end. After guys go to D1 or D2, D3, they'll kind of be on that end of where really it's the D2s and D3s. They're in the mix of that from a recruiting time frame, as most of you guys probably know, Division 1, the guys come off the board first. The kind of D1s have their first pick as they go and then the D2s, D3s and Jucos come in after that as well. So from a timing perspective, it's usually a little bit later. Whether you're deciding or you're committing into juco. A lot of jucos happen into senior year like commits. So if you're going into your senior year, that's when it's definitely a good time to consider a juco. If we don't have any traction on any Other level, some notable players who went to juco. I mean, some hall of Famers here. One of the best players ever. Ever. Albert Pujols, Mike Piazza, Kurt Schilling, Andy Pettit, just to name a few here. So let's dive into the top 20 junior colleges here and I'm going to do another video of D2Jucos and D3Jucos, but let's go over here. So Arizona now coming in at number one, Central Arizona. They went 15, 11. They are the national champions. They are number one. The runner up coming in number two is Cowley County Community College out of Kansas. Kansas has a lot of good community or, excuse me, junior college programs. They're runner up there. National champions. Runner up, number three, Walter State Community College out in Tennessee, went 55 in five. I mean, just kind of bonkers how many they win here, how many games they win at juco level. Wabash Valley in Illinois, 52 and 6. Coming in at number 4. Coming in at number 5, Crowder out of Missouri, 50 and 10. Number 6, College of Central Florida. There's a lot of good junior colleges in Florida. They are definitely one of them that went 46 and 15. San Jacinto. I just probably butchered that name. College of north out in Texas, 44 and 18. McLennan Community College in Texas as well, 46 in the 11. And number nine, Snead State Community College out of Alabama, 42 and 16. They had a really good year. Kind of came out of nowhere, honestly, from a rankings perspective and did a really, really Good job. Number 10, Harford Community College in Maryland, 48 and 7. Eastern Oklahoma State College. Number coming in at number 11, went 51. 3. Man, just unbelievable. Only lost three games. Iowa Western Community College, 47 and 12. They came in in number 12 there. Salt Lake Community College in Utah. I love this. Utah coming in in the top 20, 45 and nine. And number 14, Chipola College. I mean, historic. This is one of the, probably one of the best jucos just from a historic standpoint of national champions. Out of Florida, 41 and 14. Georgia Highlands out of Georgia, 45 and 9. Number 16, Kansas City. Kansas Community College, 47 and 10. And then we have Florida Southwestern State coming in at 17 with 42 and 15. Florence Darlington Tech, South Carolina, 49 and 13. And then Grayson out in Texas, another historic program, 38 and 17. And rounding out the top 20, Dyersburg State Community College in Tennessee, 42 and 13. So definitely check these out, especially if you're looking or considering which I think you should always consider juco route. Just keep it on the table. You don't have to like push it off the opportunity because there could be some good opportunities there. So don't just take it off the table. Look at these programs. Dive in. I'm actually going to be releasing an application where you'll be able to look into all of these programs here and get a lot more detail from that standpoint. So keep a lookout for. But if you got anything from this video, please smash that like button that thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. And I put out a weekly video on recruiting and just how to get better on and off the field. Plus just some insights as far as baseball programs if you will be alright. So hopefully you got something and I will see you in the next video. Take care. Have a good day.