{"id":4706,"date":"2023-05-29T14:01:32","date_gmt":"2023-05-29T18:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=4706"},"modified":"2023-05-29T14:01:32","modified_gmt":"2023-05-29T18:01:32","slug":"former-michigan-state-football-db-finds-new-juco-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=4706","title":{"rendered":"Former Michigan State football DB finds new JUCO home"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Former Michigan State football defensive back AJ Kirk has officially found a new home at Jones College in Mississippi.<\/h2>\n<p>When AJ Kirk committed to <a href=\"http:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/michigan-state-football-makes-4-star-lb-kamar-mothudis-top-5\/\">Michigan State football<\/a> over Ohio State, I know I was excited to see what he could bring to the Spartan defensive backfield.<\/p>\n<p>Kirk held some really strong offers from the likes of Ohio State, Notre Dame, Nebraska, Kentucky, Michigan, Florida, Penn State, and Cincinnati. He was a coveted safety prospect whose rating didn&#8217;t quite match up with his offer list. But he chose Mel Tucker and the Spartans over the rest in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>However, he just never saw the field for Michigan State despite the high expectations many, including myself, placed on him before his freshman year.<\/p>\n<p>After redshirting as a true freshman and not seeing any game action in 2022, he decided to enter the transfer portal after spring ball and he has officially found a new home.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Committed to Jones college ? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/5YP4FSgvcL\">pic.twitter.com\/5YP4FSgvcL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; A.J. Kirk Jr. (@AJKirkJr1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AJKirkJr1\/status\/1663001028243992576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 29, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Kirk will be headed down to Mississippi to play for Jones College at the JUCO level. For those who aren&#8217;t familiar, Jones College plays some prominent JUCO teams like East Mississippi C.C. so there&#8217;s a good chance for him to get exposure. He&#8217;ll likely have another shot at the FBS if he tears it up at Jones College.<\/p>\n<p>This is someone that I&#8217;ll probably always find myself rooting for and following just because I was so excited when he first picked Michigan State. It just felt like the talent level was always there.<\/p>\n<p>For whatever reason, though, he just couldn&#8217;t crack the rotation at Michigan State.<\/p>\n<p>Jones College will begin its 2023 season on Sept. 7 at Itawamba and the following week it&#8217;ll play East Mississippi which was the featured school in the &#8220;Last Chance U&#8221; documentary on Netflix. This will be a prime opportunity for Kirk to put himself on the JUCO recruiting map.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AJ Kirk is off to Mississippi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[425,191,189],"class_list":["post-4706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-aj-kirk","tag-michigan-state-football","tag-michigan-state-spartans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}