Transfer talk
Big 12 coaches are divided on the conference’s new transfer rule.
TEXAS — Within the past three years, nearly a third of the Big 12’s football coaches have, in a way, transferred. The group is divided on a new rule that affects the freedom players have to do the same.
Beginning in October, student-athletes will be free to transfer without permission from their current school or coach; in each case, the player will inform the school of his or her decision, and the university enters the name into a national database. Once players are in the database, any coach is free to contact them.
Previously, schools often blocked transfers to certain institutions, particularly teams in the same conference, on future schedules or that were otherwise rivals. With the new rule, players no longer require a release from their school or coach, though they must still sit out a season if they’re not a graduate transfer.
The rule sparked varying opinions among Big 12 coaches during the league’s media days last week.
Some praised the freedom it gives studentathletes, while others feared the transfer system devolving into free agency.
Baylor’s Matt Rhule is one of three Big 12 coaches who in the past three years left a headcoaching job at a nonPower Five program to join their current university. He noted that he had the choice to leave Temple and come to Baylor. He said he believes players should have the power to make a similar decision.
“We have to make sure we teach responsibility; we want to fight entitlement everywhere, but I do believe that if a young man does not want to be in our program, he should have the right to go wherever he is going to be successful,” Rhule said. “I was at Temple and I made the decision to come to Baylor. I had that right, and I had to pay a buyout. So I think our young people should have the ability to go where they think they can be the most successful.”
Tom Herman, who left Houston to become Texas’ coach before last season, said he supports the rule because it boosts student-athlete welfare. He brought up cost-ofliving support, lessened practice requirements and the new redshirt rule, which allows players to participate in four games in a season and still receive a redshirt, as other changes that have helped players.
“As long as anything can fit within the current model of college football that benefits the student-athlete, I'm all for it,”Herman said.
Matt Campbell, nearing his third season at Iowa State after leaving Toledo, worries about the direction after this rule. He fears larger programs could begin recruiting players already at other universities.
TCU coach Gary Patterson expressed similar concerns to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, saying the best players will transfer to the “highest bidder.”
“It puts a little bit of onus on you as a coach to create a great culture that young men feel comfortable in,” Campbell said. “But I also think the demand of what our sport is something that I think coaches fear that if we loosen up those rules too tight, then it becomes free agency and the reality is these coaches start recruiting other university’s kids.
“I know the NCAA says, ‘Oh, we’ll police that,’ but I’d love to know how that’s gonna get policed. That’s a naive statement to say.”
Campbell said during media days that he doesn’t block players’ schools they can transfer to, going so far to joke that he encourages them to go to programs the Cyclones will play and would write that into their releases if he could.
In December, quarterback Jacob Park transferred from Iowa State. The Cyclones blocked his ability to transfer to other Big 12 programs; in-state schools Iowa, Northern Iowa and Drake; and teams on Iowa State’s future schedules.
Kansas State coach Bill Snyder initially denied receiver Corey Sutton from transferring to a designated list of 35 schools, some of which were FCS and Division II programs and none of which were on the Wildcats’ future schedules, in 2017. Sutton transferred to Appalachian State after Kansas State eventually granted him his release.
When asked about the new rule at Big 12 Media Days, Snyder said he hoped backups would choose to compete rather than attempt what could be perceived as an easier path.
“If you want something, then you work extremely hard,” Snyder said. “You have a good plan about how to achieve it and you work extremely hard at doing it and you don't give up, you don't give in, you don't walk away from it. You continue to compete to make what you desire to happen, happen. I think some of the rules kind of bypass that.”
Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy reportedly blocked Wes Lunt from 37 schools, including every program in the Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC, when the quarterback decided to transfer from OSU in 2013. Gundy later lifted those restrictions and said at media days the Cowboys haven’t limited a student-athlete’s options to transfer in “three or four years.”
He added he hasn’t “paid much attention” to the possibility of transfers no longer having to sit out a season, a change West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said he would oppose.
Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley was ambivalent about the new policy, believing it could prompt “unintended consequences” that prompt more rules. He supports the players having freedom, but he hopes they avoid making rash, emotional decisions.
“I’m not jumping up and down screaming either way,” Riley said. “I get the fact that the players feel like they need to have some freedom, too. That’s a little bit the world we live in, and I think if we just stomp our feet against it, I think we’re being a little archaic, honestly.”