College Football has had some extreme highs and lows. One of those lows is the transfer portal. On the field, you get the extreme rivalries, some of the best atmospheres in the world, and future NFL stars. However, off the field, it is a mess, highlighted by the broken transfer portal. Here are some changes the NCAA should implement to fix the transfer portal.
The first change should be to the calendar. The NCAA reduced the number of openings for the Transfer Portal from 2 to 1 at the start of the season. However, the timing was horrible. With the playoffs happening right in the middle of the portal, many teams have lost key parts of their roster right before the 2 biggest games in the season. Like Oregon losing secondary depth and 2 running backs. Head coach Dan Lanning presented his ideas, saying either move the season up a week or get rid of a bye. Stating, “Saturdays should be sacred to College Football, every Saturday through the month of December should belong to College Football.” Lanning is not the only coach mad about the calendar, ask any coach, and they would say the same
The second change should be with tampering. With the rise of the transfer portal, tampering goes with it. Tampering is when an athlete is set to play for a school, but other coaches and schools try to flip them. Tampering happens all the time, but there is no one to penalize a school or coach, so it goes insane. A clear example is when Washington’s QB Demond Willams signed a deal with the school for lots of money, then 3 days later entered his name into the transfer portal. LSU’s Lane Kiffin offered him more money while his name was not in the transfer portal. But Washington retained Demond with legal action.
While entering the portal can provide great opportunity, it brings a big risk of not finding a new team. 30-50% of players don’t end up at a D1 school when they enter the portal. Many find themselves going down into lower divisions like Division 2, JUCO, and NAIA or even walk on somewhere. This is due to the over saturation of the portal, players with unrealistic expectations, and program needs.
Another change that needs to be made is involving limitless NIL. Some of the amount of the money college players are paid makes you question what you’re doing with your life. Although most people are all for players being paid, it is not okay how there is no cap to the amount a team can spend. It makes an uneven playing field with teams like Georgia, Alabama, Oregon, Ohio State, and many more having more money to spend than programs like Tulane, TCU, and North Texas. Along with players having unrealistic expectations of what they should be paid, creating a toxic player.
So, with most of the college football community angry about the state of the transfer portal, will the higherups change anything? Only time will tell, but probably not.
