With the opening of the transfer portal on January 2nd, the college football landscape has been completely flipped on its head. Over 10,500 student-athletes have entered their name into the portal this season. And to be honest, it’s been a complete mess. Now that the portal is closed, and rosters have been largely settled, we can take a look at what’s gone wrong and how to fix it.
How did we get here?
The main driving factor behind the increased use of the transfer portal is Name, Image, and Likeness, or NIL. NIL allows players to be paid for sponsorships and jersey sales, and later, direct pay for play, so it makes sense that players at FCS schools (lower tier) would transfer to Power 4 schools in search of higher pay. The key turning point for NIL was the Supreme Court case NCAA vs. Alston. While this decision did not directly establish pay-for-play, it did allow schools to offer more benefits, such as computers, to their athletes. Eventually, this ruling snowballed into the House vs. NCAA settlement, which allowed athletic departments to directly share revenue with their players, distributing up to $20.5 million a year to student-athletes.
What’s gone wrong?
In my opinion, NIL and the transfer portal have stripped college football of any loyalty. Instead of waiting their turn and working for a starting spot, athletes will now just transfer to a school where they can find guaranteed playing time. Also, a star at a smaller school is encouraged to immediately transfer away the second a big time school comes calling with an NIL offer. For example, James Madison had the greatest year in school history, going 12-1 in the regular season and making the College Football Playoff. This should have been a building block for the school to catapult themselves into becoming a powerhouse program. However, all 11 offensive starters from the playoff team and the head coach won’t return for next season. Now, JMU has been knocked straight back to square one, and the Dukes have to completely rebuild.
The main problem with the transfer portal is that there are no rules and no enforcing body to keep order. This year, there’s been an outbreak of reported tampering and multiple incidents where schools are suing their own student-athletes for breaking NIL contracts. The most documented case is the Darian Mensah situation that has unfolded over the past few weeks. After transferring from Tulane, Duke signed the star QB to a 2-year, 8-million-dollar NIL deal. At Duke, Mensah was one of the best QBs in the country and led Duke to an ACC championship. Duke was in prime position to repeat that and potentially make the college football playoffs. However, a curveball was thrown when Mensah unexpectedly entered the portal just hours before it closed, having been lured in by a reported 10-million-dollar deal from Miami, just a few days after making a LeBron-style video announcing his return. Duke University, having no other option, sued him for breach of contract. The tricky part about suing student-athletes is that they are not technically employees, so you can’t force them to stay at a school. The way I see it is that Mensah breached his contract, turned his back on his team and school, and sold out for more money, and he will have absolutely no consequences.
Another instance of the present lawlessness is what’s going on with LB Luke Ferrelli at Ole Miss. Originally, Ferelli (ACC Freshman of the Year) entered the transfer portal from Cal and committed to Clemson. He then decommitted from Clemson and transferred to Ole Miss. This happens all the time, but what are noteworthy are the comments Clemson head coach Dabo Sweeeney made about the situation. He directly accused Ole Miss coach Pete Golding of tampering, stating that Golding texted Ferrelli directly with an NIL offer while he was enrolled at another school. This is expressly against the NCAA rules, but as of now, it looks like there will be no consequences. Ferrelli was enrolled and attending classes, but the second he received a higher NIL offer, he was gone. Situations like this will continue to happen regularly, unless new laws are created to clean up the mess that the transfer portal has created for itself.
How it can be fixed?
1. Move the college football timeline up one week: Currently, the transfer portal opens while the college football playoff games are still being played, so the bench players have to decide whether to risk their future by staying or leaving the team before the biggest game(s) of the season. By moving the timeline up a week and keeping the transfer portal at the same time, you eliminate the dilemma for the players and keep the transfer portal lined up with the academic calendar.
2. Players get one “free” transfer: after that, you have to sit out a year if you transfer again. This would help eliminate the loyalty problem that is present right now and help prevent situations like that of QB TJ Finley, who has been at 7 programs in 7 years. The year you sit out would also count against your eligibility, as to prevent 25-year-olds from playing college football.
3. Soccer style transfer fees: In Europe, when a soccer player leaves his current club for a new one, the new club has to pay a “transfer fee.” Importing this idea into college football would help smaller schools like James Madison recover after their roster gets decimated. A 10% fee this year could have made James Madison upwards of $250,000, which they could have used to attract new players to the program. In my opinion, if the current rules stay the same, non-Power 4 programs will be completely stripped of their ability to compete at a sustained high-level. This transfer fee should fix that problem.
4. Enforce the tampering rules: This is the most important one. There has to be a dedicated team at the NCAA that is monitoring tampering and enforcing the rules which they created. ESPN’s Pete Thamel recently said on a broadcast that he assumes that almost every single D1 team has tampered with the current transfer portal rules in some way this offseason. All of them do this because there are absolutely no consequences for breaking the rules. I believe that any team that is found to be tampering should immediately be fined, and the player they tampered with–if he commits to that school–should be placed back on his original team. Having these laws in place will even the playing field and hopefully restore some order to the Wild West that is the transfer portal.
