Tradition, passion and excitement would be how people described college sports before the transfer portal. Now, loyalty and everything that was good about college sports is on its last legs.
The NCAA introduced the transfer portal to college athletics in 2018. Its purpose was to “help compliance administrators to better organize the process.” However, it’s turned into a big free agency portal.
Since August 2021, not counting 2023, 20,900 division one athletes have entered the portal. Of those 20,900, only 12,000 have found new teams. The transfer portal was supposed to make transfers less messy, however, it has just made college sports more of a mess and has turned the NCAA into a miniature professional league.
South Carolina Head football coach Will Muschamp made his thoughts clear about the transfer portal and how it feels like a free agency.
“I certainly do, but again, it’s here to stay,” he said during an interview. “It’s not gonna change. I just don’t think anything is gonna change, as far as that’s concerned.”
Athletes would rather just jump ship than face competition at their current school or get a better NIL deal somewhere else. Coaches in college sports have only a certain number of scholarships each year, and with over half of their recruits transferring after a year or less, coaches have started to shy away from high school students and focus more on the transfer portal.
That way of thinking will stunt the development of high school players. There are many good high school players that will be overlooked because coaches aren’t really looking outside the portal. A major example of this would be new Colorado head coach Deion Sanders, who has had over 50 players leave and 20 players come via the transfer portal.
College sports are the way of life throughout the country. From powerhouses Georgia and Alabama to small town Idaho Vandals, loyal fans love watching games on Saturday. Whether it’s the 22 players on the gridiron, or 10 on the basketball court, sports bring communities together. The passion, loyalty and emotion that the fans have was shared by players, but now players are only there to further their career and to get NIL money. The passion, rivalries and colors of your school used to mean everything to fans and players, now it seems like the players don’t even care.
Fans used to get so excited to see their favorite players on their team for three to four years. Now, they will be lucky to see them for more than a year. Not every college athlete thinks like this, but when 20,000 of them do, it makes college sports more of a business than a game.
Of course, coaches and athletic departments need to create the best teams they can, but college football is turning into the NFL, with cherry-picked teams and 18 and 19-year-olds making three to four million dollars to play in college. This isn’t the fault of college athletes, but the system, which is turning 18 – 22-year-olds into dollar signs rather than human beings.
The transfer portal, when done right, can be an amazing thing, but it is not being used right and therefore is ruining everything that is exciting about college sports.
Jayden Barfuss can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @JaydenBarfuss10
George McFloyd
U of Idaho psychologists: I used that expression twice in my 24/7 days, some weirdly and clickbaitingly. Once to refer to me changing my username and another time to ramble about my lost of interest in history. "Why do you have to use that impolite word? True, it is the most fascinating topic on earth and it was some three years after 9-11. A very morbid time. But others might think that you are trying to psych them out when you use the D-word online". P.S. My D.L. Roth comment was also totally innocuous. I have no idea why Kurt Cobain committed suicide. I thought that it (suicide of artists) was just a cultural cliche.