Portal’s biggest plus outweighs minuses
The transfer portal isn’t evil. Neither is the one-time-transfer rule. But they do have some unintended consequences.
Prime among them: the impact on high school recruits. College football programs are offering less scholarships to prep players in order to leave room for transfers. The inexact science of recruiting now has added a moving target in the transfer portal. The result is some really good high school seniors find themselves without any major-college offers.
It stinks.
But I’ve always been a believer college athletes need more power, not less, and being able to transfer schools more freely is a step in that direction. For too long, the NCAA pushed back against athletes having freedom of movement even as coaches and administrators pulled up stakes regularly.
That was the height of hypocrisy. So, you’re not going to hear me bagging on the transfer portal.
Even high school coaches who have players impacted by the reduction in scholarship offers are remiss to trash it.
“That’s the future of college football, so there’s no point in complaining about it,” Heritage Hall coach Brett Bogert said.
His senior receiver Gavin Freeman is one of the players who’s been caught in the middle of the change. He was an AllStater a year ago, one of the best players in the state, and he will be the best player on the field in pretty much every
game he plays this season.
But right now, Freeman has no Power 5 offers and only one from a Football Bowl Subdivision school. What can Freeman and Bogert do?
“Just try to navigate it and figure out the best we can,” Bogert said.
High school coaches realize, after all, the very thing causing consternation right now could provide their players a huge opportunity in the future.
Say some of these players land with a lower-level FBS team or even at a Football Championship Subdivision program, and after a year or two, everyone can see how talented they are. Their skills soar. Their prowess pops.
Because of the one-time-transfer rule, they would have the chance to test the major-college waters. Enter the transfer portal. See what programs reach out.
It’s not a perfect scenario, of course. It’d be great if every player could commit to his dream school, discover it was every bit as good as he hoped, then spend his entire career there. But we know the reality is rarely so idyllic.
That’s why players having the ability to enter the portal and transfer once with no penalty is a good thing, regardless of the unintended consequences.
Apparently, the NCAA is considering a change that may address the impact the transfer portal is having on high school recruits. Over the weekend, Sports Illustrated reported NCAA officials are moving closer to expanding the number of players a football team can sign in a year. Increasing the annual signing limit beyond 25 is being considered to give relief to teams looking to replace players lost to the transfer portal.
Sports Illustrated reports officials are coalescing around a plan where programs could sign 25 new players each year, then add an additional spot for every player who chooses to transfer out. Those additional spots would likely be capped at a certain number.
Even though the NCAA is considering the change in order to help programs that have had lots of players transfer out, the change would undoubtedly help high school recruits.
“If it does stay at 25, no question there’s going to be less high school guys signed,” OU coach Lincoln Riley said. “No question.”
Expanding signing classes would be help high school players the way onetime transfers has helped college players. They should be giving a chance to transfer once, no redshirt year required, no NCAA waiver for automatic eligibility needed, no questions asked. They should have that freedom of movement, even it causes some unintended consequences.
Remember, too, the overall number of scholarships in college football hasn’t changed. There are still the same number of programs with the same number of scholarship players each year. The transfer portal didn’t take away any spots in major-college football.
What the transfer portal did, though, is change the journey. For some high school recruits, the journey is more difficult while for some college players, it has been made easier.
But again, the portal hasn’t eliminated chances.
It’s just changed what some of them look like.