22 College Football Thoughts for 2022, No. 17: The transfer portal will only get bigger and more prominent, and that’s going to be a problem.
22 College Football Thoughts For 2022
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17. The transfer portal will only become more important. However …
Don’t be stunned if the NCAA comes up with a way to clamp down a bit on how easy it is for the players to move around.
The NCAA and Mark Emmert might be going all Chicken Little on the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals, but that’s one cat that’s not going back into the bag. However, what they can start to work on and tweak is the transfer portal that might be a positive overall, but quickly went rogue.
Here’s the problem – now everyone has to recruit players from other schools all the time, all while coaches have to keep wooing their own guys. And if you’re not pinging around to see who might not be totally happy at whether they’re at, you’re not doing your job.
The transfer portal is the new recruiting. Outside of the elite prospects, why mess around with a guess when you can bring in ready-made men ready to play?
You ready to have some transfer portal fun? Wait until the depth charts start to come out – if they come out.
That’s like a list of Glengarry leads for a salesman – every No. 2 on the chart, especially at quarterback, will be offered the world. But coaches are going to wise up to this fast.
Get ready for this phrase over and over again …
“We’ll settle it in fall camp.”
You have to be insane if you come out with a depth chart that say anything but OR after every player’s name.
I’m a full proponent of players’ rights in every way, shape, and form, but on this I do get how there has to be something to tone this down, because it’s not fair.
It’s not fair to the coaches, it’s not fair to the players who might transfer to a school for an opportunity only to get shoved out when someone else wants to transfer in, and it’s not fair to the entire process when the big schools can go vulture away the best players from the smaller ones.
Oh yeah, and there’s that silly little thing about, you know, college. Yeah, go play football and go have fun, but maybe do a little of that learning thing along the way. That goes all out the window when players transfer just so they might be able to see the football field.
So how does this get fixed? Does it need to be fixed, since regular students can transfer at any time, so why not football players?
Maybe limit the number of transfers a school can bring in to be eligible for a given year. Maybe limit the transfer time to a fixed number of weeks – but make sure it’s not set up so players can get screwed over by depth chart manipulation.
Maybe limit the number of games a transfer can play – if a kid wants to actually go to a school to go to school, then not getting to play a few games shouldn’t matter. But, of course, that’s totally naive.
Where this gets even trickier is with the NIL deals. If a kid has a deal, and he’s all of a sudden the second string quarterback, then the entire world changes and moves will be based on whatever contracts and deals are set up and which states have the right rules to keep it all going.
But for now, the changes will likely come flying fast and furious very, very soon.
Pray for the coaches who’ll spend way too much time trying to keep everyone happy, and God bless those poor souls who keep putting out a print version of a preview that – thanks to the on-the-fly changes – will be worthless the second it’s off the presses.
Speaking of stealing talent …
22 College Football Thoughts For 2022
22, College football is changing, and it’s okay
21, Texas & Oklahoma, you really want the SEC?
20. SEC is really, really good if you like it or not
19. James Madison, welcome to the show
18. Sun Belt is the cool conference
