For downtrodden schools in out of the way places, the JUCO route is a blessing and a curse.

Newly retired Bill Snyder of Kansas State was the past master of the strategy. He'd bring in players from Chapman, Butler, Hutchinson, Coffeyville and Dodge City and turn them into all-conference players and pros. One year he brought in quarterback Michael Bishop from Blinn Junior College. Bishop led the Wildcats to an 11-1 season and finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1998.

In 2012, Snyder had a staggering 124 players on the roster, a total that included 49 walk-ons. A quarter of his roster, 31 players, were JUCOs.

From 1997 to 2003, Snyder won 11 games in 6 out of 7 seasons, finishing in the Top Ten five times.

O.J. Simpson, Mike Rozier and Cam Newton all won the Heisman Trophy after starting their careers in Junior College. Super Bowl winner and future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers had no offers coming out of high school. He considered giving up football for law school before enrolling at Butte Community College, throwing for 26 touchdowns and catching the eye of Cal coach Jeff Tedford.

Rodgers was a special kind of JUCO player, the late bloomer. He qualified academically coming out of high school, but was undersized at 5-10, 165. Over two seasons at Cal he shot up to 6-2, 220, compiled a 17-4 record as a starter, drafted 24th in 2005 by the Green Bay Packers.

That's a bit of the boom of JUCO history, but there's a lot of bust. It's a category of players fraught with downside. Grade cases. Head cases. Talent that just doesn't transfer to the next level of football. Potential that fizzles against bigger, faster and more agile players.

For the Ducks, they've had some notable junior college successes. Linebacker Joe Walker came out of Los Angeles Harbor Community College, played three seasons at Oregon while helping the team win two PAC-12 titles, a Rose Bowl and an Alamo Bowl. Defensive tackle Zac Clark was a mainstay on the Rose Bowl squad of 2009 and the National Championship contenders of 2010, racking up 59 tackles and four sacks in two seasons.

Like most places, the JUCO history at Oregon is littered with players who never quite put it together, whether it was grades, effort, injuries or logjam on the depth chart. Ratu Mafileo. Rahsaan Vaughn. A.J. Hotchkins. Eddie Heard.

They weren't necessarily bad guys, or even bad football players. A few found success elsewhere: Hotchins had a 100 tackles for UTEP this season as a graduate transfer. Vaughn made an NFL roster for a little while, with the Jets.

One of the great advantages of recruiting as well as the Ducks are now is that the coaches don't have to rely as heavily on the high-risk, short-reward world of the JC transfer. Junior college players typically have a short window and inflated expectations. Many have baggage, a laptop or two in their closet, a punch or two thrown in the waning moments of a frustrating loss.

High school recruits come with the prospect of a higher upside and a longer time frame to develop. If they pan out, the program has them for three or four years, giving the staff time in turn to develop their replacement. With JUCOs, it's boom or bust. Even the best ones stay with you for two years, at most three years, and a few are one and done. It's a cycle that tends to trap a school into long term reliance on the quick fix.

Recruiting as well as they are in the high school ranks, Oregon can now afford to be judicious about junior college players and transfers in general. They can afford to utilize precious roster spots on just a few transfers with exceptional potential, players who fill specific needs.

This cycle, they opted to add two, Malaesala Aumavea-Laulu, the number one JUCO offensive tackle in the country, listed at 6-6, 389, massive and prodigiously strong, and Dru Mathis of Moorpark Community College, an inside linebacker, 6-3, 240.

These are carefully considered choices who could pay deep dividends. Their highlight films show two players who could take the Ducks further down the road toward the physical style Mario Cristobal wants to instill in his roster. Both knock people down. It's easy to envision Sala punching out some huge holes on the offensive line. Mathis could blossom into the run stopper the Ducks sorely lacked in road losses to Arizona and Utah, later in the season when the depth chart got thin and front line starters wore down.

Neither is a big risk. For the longer term, the Ducks are developing some promising young players around them, like Jonah Tauanu'u and Mase Funa. In the meantime these JUCO studs could speed Oregon toward some of their goals. Winning the PAC-12 and becoming the most physical team in the conference become more immediately possible.

Up the road at Oregon State, Jonathan Smith took three JUCO transfers among their 15 commits, two three stars and a two star, players the Beavers will have to rely on to plug up severely depleted offensive and defensive lines:

3* JC DE Simon Sandberg (San Francisco, CA)

2* JC OL Rob Vanderlaan (Pleasant Hill, CA)

3* JC DT Jordan Whittley (Oakland, CA)

In football as everywhere else, the rich get richer while the poor take out payday loans to pay their rent.