‘There’s nothing like JC ball!’: Sacramento-area college coaches say talent is blowing up
No one plows through a high school football season with visions of landing at a community college. But it happens every year.
There’s a reason the rosters for local junior college programs are stacked with talent. There are only so many scholarships at four-year programs to hand out, perhaps 25 a year, and there are prospects all across the country to recruit. It’s a numbers game. Many prep players lose out, so the crunch results in JC rosters starting with 135 players in training camp and then suiting up as many as 90 on game day, with more on the sidelines.
The JC route is for the overlooked and the underdeveloped, and for those who now fully realize how important good grades are. JC ball is a haven for the eager, for everyone bounding along with a chip on their shoulder with much to prove. It’s led to dynamic seasons over the decades for each of the local programs: American River College, Sacramento City and Sierra College.
The season starts Saturday with ARC hosting Sac City at 11 a.m. and Sierra opening at national powerhouse San Mateo. At each local program, an army of coaches, many of them JC products themselves, give their guys a rigorous taste of what the four-year football level will look and feel like. In short: It’s not homecoming-blowout week in high school anymore.
‘Guys come in feeling overlooked’
At ARC, coach Jon Osterhout said JC players have to “bet on themselves” rather than walk on at a four-year program, where walk-ons are often no more than a practice body. Theme: Go to a JC and play.
“There has to be a top shelf a player wants to reach in the evolution of their own game,” Osterhout said. “Guys come in, feeling overlooked, and they want to utilize that chip on their shoulder to prove people wrong for not taking them out of high school. It takes a lot of hard work, and betting on yourself is an intrinsic motivation: ‘I know I have areas I need to improve on.’ They either do or they don’t. It’s a climb, and if you’re not willing to compete at this level, it’ll never happen.”
At Sierra College in Rocklin, veteran coach Ben Noonan stressed that the JC experience has to be, “more than just football.” This is a great theme because too many come into the JC route thinking it’s only about football.
He added, “This level is truly a second chance for many student-athletes to develop on the field and mentally as young men and in the classroom as students. We’re constantly challenging our players to not let football define who they are. Have a life plan because football ends for all of us at some point.”
At Sac City, where Hughes Stadium towers over the field, coach Dannie Walker can relate to the JC grind as a player and as a coach.
“I lived it, I know it,” Walker has said before and repeats. “At this level, we have guys who are hungry, eager, and they’re learning about life, how to be better players, how to be better students, how to be better young men. It’s a great level of play. And kids need it. They want to be coached, to be held accountable, to have structure.”
Each of the local programs have experienced moments of glory, making for a good recruiting pitch in addition to being promised one thing only: an opportunity to impact a roster. Sac City finished national No. 1 in 1980 and ‘81 and has largely had winning teams ever since. Sierra had a 37-game winning streak, from 2002-05, and still rolls on. ARC had 10-0 teams in the late 1960s and in the 2000s and had been highly ranked in recent campaigns. ARC is preseason ranked No. 7 in the state by the JC Athletic Bureau. Sierra is No. 21 and Sac City is poised to bounce back from a 3-7 campaign.
City College of San Francisco is preseason No. 1 in the state and the country. The Rams eliminated ARC in the Northern California semifinals last season and plays Sierra on Oct. 1. Sierra reached a JC bowl game last season, its 16th in 20 seasons.
And NFL dues? Each has produced their share. ARC had early 1980s first-rounders Tony Eason and Gerald Willhite, and ageless running back Devontae Booker has logged seven NFL seasons. Sac City had receiver Alex Van Dyke reach the NFL in the 1990s and quarterback Seneca Wallace in the 2000s. Sierra has receiver Brandon Aiyuk with the 49ers now.
Players with plenty to prove
ARC’s starting quarterback is Kenny Lueth, a Rocklin High School star who had most of his senior season last fall wiped out by a knee ligament injury. The 6-foot-4 freshman is not short of motivation or skill. He looks every bit the part of Division I college player. The same can be said of running back Avante Jacobs out of Oak Ridge, tight end Grayson Barnes of Rocklin, who endured bad luck with injuries at Rocklin (he is the son of ARC line coach Bob Barnes), and rush end Kai Wallin. Wallin was an All-Metro difference-maker at Jesuit High, largely overlooked as a recruit and offered walk-on chances. He is not lacking in ability or confidence. He is 6-6 and 245 pounds.
“He’s a freak athlete, a ton of upside,” Osterhout said.
Sierra is paced by quarterback Michael Wortham, who didn’t get a lot of four-year looks out of Center High because he isn’t 6-foot-4. But he’s fast and skilled and has been lauded as a team leader. Sierra left tackle Nicholas Scalise of Oak Ridge is in his third year with the Wolverines with a lot of four-year college interest.
Sac City features Ben Partee at quarterback, a transfer from Santa Barbara City College, and running backs Trevon Frazier of Elk Grove and Evan Zeppieri of Bradshaw Christian. These guys can play. The defensive leader is linebacker Isaiah Bobbitt-Byars who talks a good game as well as plays one.
“No one wants to go to a JC, but it’s a beautiful thing,” said Bobbitt-Byars, a 6-foot-1 225-pound quarterback-seeking missile. “Everyone in high school thinks, ‘I’m way better than JC.’ I’m surprised. I didn’t think it’d be this good, but it’s great competition. It’s stacked.”
Bobbitt-Byars said he will graduate and play on scholarship, one way or another.
“My dreams since I was little was to go Division I, on scholarship, because my parents can’t pay for college, and I want to help them help me,” he said. “JC shouldn’t be looked at as a bad thing. It’s real college football.”
And JC ball is worth a peek. A lot of scoring and a lot of chips on shoulders of guys expecting to make a point.
“There’s nothing like JC ball,” said Noonan of Sierra. “It’s stronger in the Sacramento area as it’s ever been.”