Transfer Portal Turmoil

Should the Transfer Portal Become More Limited?

Photo from Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

After every college football season, some student-athletes like to relax and prepare for the next season. However, many athletes believe that they may have a better opportunity at another university, leading them to then enter the transfer portal. In the transfer portal, these players can go to any university in the country with no limit on how many times they can transfer. Over the past three years, the system has fallen out of control. This calls for a change for how the transfer portal should be used.

With the current format, an athlete can enter the transfer portal as many times as he wants. With redshirt years, a year where a player can stay eligible while sitting out the year, a player can possibly play for more than four universities. Quarterback, TJ Finley, has abused this system. Finley will be playing his seventh year of college football next season for his seventh different team. This should not be possible because a player is normally allocated only one redshirt season. However, Finley was able to call two of his seasons medical redshirts, allowing him to gain a seventh year of eligibility. Despite all of these moves, there was no penalty for Finley and he has been allowed to play every season. This is because a redshirt can still be used if a player plays in less than four games.

Finley is not the only student-athlete that has taken advantage of the portal. Many athletes across college football have utilized their redshirts in similar ways. If the NCAA wants to change the problem of transferring, there must be limits put in place for the athletes. Before the portal allowed unlimited transferring without a punishment, the NCAA had strict rules in place for transferring. Before 2020, a player who transferred was forced to sit out at least one year before he was eligible to play. Though this rule would not typically be possible in the modern format of college football, it could be possible for a player who wants to transfer more than once. One potential solution would allow student-athletes one free transfer, but require a redshirt year for an additional transfer at the next university. Though many student-athletes would not agree with this change, many coaches would support it, as it would allow them to worry less about their entire team entering the portal and having to rebuild from scratch the next season.

The portal has become out of hand mainly for one reason: name, image and likeness (NIL) deals. NIL allows athletes to make money based off of who they are, originally many fans thought that it allowed athletes to gain sponsorships. However, this quickly was shown not to be true when every university created an NIL collective. The collective allows boosters to donate money to the players through an organization that sponsors the player. This allows the university to pay players through a caveat in the system. Due to this, many athletes learned that other universities could offer more money than the one they are at. Since the athletes knew this, they would enter the transfer portal in hopes they maximize their financial gain. Power Four teams benefit the most because they have the most money in these NIL collectives. Texas Tech is a school taking great advantage of this. Texas Tech has one of the most expensive NIL collective’s because they are based off of an Oil monarchy in Texas. This means they have the ability to give the most money to their players. The program recently recruited quarterback Brendan Sorsby from Cincinnati last season, who is set to make five million dollars next season, more than current Cleveland Browns starting quarterback Shedeur Sanders who is in the NFL. If the NIL problem is not fixed, more college athletes will continue to out-earn professional NFL players.

The transfer portal in college football was originally made to help athletes find the best situation for them. Now, the portal is a money grab where student-athletes can hop around to as many schools they want in order to make the most money possible. With over 10 thousand players in the transfer portal, this issue is rapidly worsening. If the NCAA does not fix the transfer portal rules, the sport of college football will become ruined.