Rodriguez using overlooked JUCO players to boost WVU
Just days before National Signing Day, junior college wide receiver Keon Hutchins announced he was decommitting to West Virginia. The top wide receiver at the JUCO level decided to go in another direction.
In the morning of National Signing Day, in the media’s inbox came the announcement that Hutchins had signed with the Mountaineers despite decommitting days prior.
“You’d have to ask him,” Rich Rodriguez said on Hutchins changing his mind. “We didn’t like up the money or anything, or anything. I think sometimes when it gets time to sign, and they get all kinds of phone calls and stuff, their mind gets kind of whacky.”
With Hutchins, WVU had two of the top 5-rated receivers at the junior college level. If you do a quick scroll of WVU’s 49 signees for the 2026 class, a good chunk of the players are from the junior college level, and some of them, like Hutchins, are the best players in the class. WVU’s top two receivers in the class are JUCO guys.
“It wasn’t really intentional,” Rodriguez said. “Like, let’s get JUCO guys. It’s find the best players you can get. Portal don’t open till January. You look at maybe this guy might be in the portal. The smaller school portal guys are in right now, so you can evaluate them, but you don’t really know for sure the portal guys.”
There are benefits to adding JUCO players. One of them is that JUCO players can enter the portal a lot earlier than actual transfers, who can’t officially enter the portal until Jan. 2. JUCO players have tape against a bit higher level of competition compared to high schoolers.
The JUCO players are, of course, cheaper than portal players, and Rodriguez is always looking for deals, which is why he’s attacked the high school recruiting so hard. JUCO players are more grateful, too.
“One thing I found out about the junior college guys, when you get them, they’re not spoiled,” Rodriguez said. “You give them a free meal. They’re like, ‘Hey, are you kidding? This is great.’ Give them a T-shirt this week. ‘Are you kidding me?’ JC guys are used to grinding a little bit. They come to a place like us and see all our facilities and all the stuff that our guys get, and they’re like, ‘How can I be a part of this?’ I’ve really enjoyed the JCs.”
There are some strong JUCO programs, too, and they have turned out talented players. Quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton and Josh Allen were all JUCO players at some point in their careers. Some of the best players this year for WVU started at junior college. Running back Tye Edwards, wide receiver Jeff Weimer, and corner Michael Coats, to name a few.
“There’s a couple JC programs like Hutchison and all that, they do a great job with their guys,” Rodriguez said. “They make sure they work hard, they graduate, get their two-year degrees. There’s a lot of really good junior college programs that prep their guys to play at this level.
The JC market is a bit untapped by the bigger schools. WVU has two of the top five receivers at the level to put it in perspective. The Mountaineers added two of the top 15 nationally, too.
JUCO recruits might not be the most flashy, compared to talented transfers or players with more stars next to their name out of high school, but they can still turn out to be great players.
Rodriguez knows that, and it doesn’t matter what level they are at, if they’re good enough to win games, they’re good enough to play for WVU.
“Probably the JC talent, we’re finding guys that maybe are getting overlooked a little bit, where in the past, they weren’t when the portal wasn’t so active,” Rodriguez said. “More JC is getting recruited, and we’re finding there’s some really good, talented players that maybe get overlooked a little bit at JC. Not that they have to be an overlooked guy for us to get them, but there’s some really good JC programs out there.”