Nine players next season will be transfer athletes
After struggling to a 2-10 record last season, the CU football team is turning to transfer athletes to try and rebuild their program.
The Buffs experienced an exodus of players in January, with nine players opting to leave the Buffs for various reasons, including two scholarship offensive linemen.
In spite of those players departing, the Buffs have also experienced an influx of transfer athletes to bolster the team’s depleted roster. The team will have nine new transfer athletes on its roster this spring, a 44 percent increase from the number of transfer athletes on the roster in the 2004-05 season.
Senior wide receiver Alvin Barnett is a transfer athlete who was forced to attend one semester of junior college prior to attending CU. Barnett said a big reason why more players are transferring (in) to CU now than three years ago is because of the relative youth the Buffs are currently experiencing,
“Coaches want lots of people that are experienced and can come in and play now and then (they can) develop the young side,” Barnett said. “I think that’s why the school and the program went to go recruit more transfers than other places.”
CU’s nine transfer athletes this season is five more than Baylor University will have on its football roster, another program in the Big 12.
Barnett said the desire to get exposure from a high-profile institution like CU is what drew him to transfer from junior college.
“At a big college like Colorado most of your games are on national television and you get exposure,” Barnett said. “You get to play places where you wouldn’t get to play.”
While Barnett chose to transfer for the exposure he would gain, Mindy Sclaro, Assistant Director for Academics at Dal Ward Athletic Center said the reasons a student-athlete may want to transfer are plentiful.
“You have students who transfer because maybe there is a major they like or a coach they want to play for,” Sclaro said.
CU senior fullback Samson Jagoras transferred to the Buffs after spending a few seasons in Division II football with Western New Mexico University, and he echoed Sclaro’s sentiments about wanting to play for a particular coach.
“I think a lot of people are interested in what’s going on here,” Jagoras said. “(Head coach Dan Hawkins) and his staff here are awesome. I think people see coach Hawk and his enthusiasm and people are excited about that and want to be a part of something bigger.”
Jagoras initially went to a Division II program because they offered him a scholarship and he didn’t have the money to pay for college at the time. Barnett initially went to Northeast Oklahoma A&M because he was a late qualifier for the NCAA academic standards set for all its athletes. However, both were subject to the same NCAA standards prior to admission to CU, according to Sclaro.
“What they have to complete before they come here is determined by certain coursework they did as a high school student, so you couldn’t go to college if you only competed one year of English, for example,” Sclaro said.
Barnett mentioned his situation required him to complete a foreign language requirement prior to attending CU, which made him a late qualifier under NCAA standards and forced him to go to junior college to complete that credit.
Reasons for transferring can also vary by sport, Sclaro said, and also mentioned whether or not a sport offers opportunities to play in the junior college ranks influences the number of transfer athletes.
“There are great opportunities for football players in the junior college ranks,” Sclaro said. “I think students are attracted for different reasons but I do think academic offerings and the quality of the athletic program has a lot to do with it.”
Contact Campus Press Staff writer Scott Lasher at scott.lasher@thecampuspress.com.
