Seven months after the start of the transfer portal, college football coaches analyze its impact and future.



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Kirby Smart is torn. The Georgia coach thinks the players deserve some freedom of transfer. Excuse him, however, he's not celebrating exactly the seventh anniversary of the transfer portal this week.

"My biggest problem with the portal is that it offers children an easy solution," Smart said. "I know the devil's advocate for the rights of the players and they should be able to go where they want.But I tell you, no normal parent would say:" At the first sign of trouble, I want my son leaves for the race. "

Welcome to the cautious first steps of the new transfer environment. As of October 15, 2018, their school or coach could no longer "block" the transferred athletes. They only needed to warn the sending school, which then put their name on the portal – a secure database that became a one-stop shop for improving the list.

Some have abandoned the flowery language by calling the "free agency" version of the athletic version of the university portal.

"It would not be different from what the NFL says:" We have a supervisory service for colleges, but we [also] have a screening department for free agents, "said Smart. The free agents market of the NFL means [they] have to evaluate these 20 free agents. We just have a big pool, the portal. "

There are almost as many questions on the portal as FBS football players: 720 at the time of printing this story, as unofficially compiled by 247Sports.

Alignments can be destroyed and rebuilt. Smart himself lost No. 1 rookie of 2018, quarterback Justin Fields, to the benefit of the Ohio State.

"No regrets," Smart said forcefully. "I would go to recruit the best player [again]. "

Call that transfer roulette. Nobody seems to know where all this is going. It is difficult to have sympathy for coaches when their biggest headache is "alignment management".

But there is also this ethical, psychological and loyal component: Be a man. Finish what you started.

Coaches preach until they do not do it and leave for the next best job overnight. A bit of hypocrisy at work there?

Regarding loyalty, you will not find the following sentence in large print on the portal: A school does not have to renew the purse of a player who inscribes his name on the portal.

"When you do, we can withdraw your grant," said Herm Edwards, the Arizona State coach. "You better understand that … Once your name appeared on the portal, you basically say, & # 39;[I’m gone]. & # 39; "

Smart has a more succinct summary of this process.

"Once we see you're on the portal, you can be cut," said Smart.

CBS Sports has spent the last few weeks collecting feedback from the first seven months of the portal's existence. It is obvious that coaches, administrators and players are still trying to understand it.

Here is the battlefield of the portal.

Ryan Day, Ohio State coach: "We want to recruit and develop guys, but the portal has changed things somehow." We walked cautiously into this world. [Fields] was an adjustment for many reasons.

"When Dwayne Haskins starts in the second year, we think he has three years left, he's coming in for one and throwing 50 TD passes, he's a first-round pick, and he left the situation worried, almost in messy, understand all this in a short time.When Justin became available, it made sense.We did not know whether he would get the waiver or not. "

Fields is among the top players who won their call for waiver of transfer for immediate eligibility. The NCAA rules allow transfers from undergraduate students to ignore the requirement of a year of residency if they can prove "extenuating circumstances beyond the control of the athlete" . These derogations are distinct from the portal discussion.

Todd Berry, Executive Director of the American Football Coaches Association: "The portal is not the problem.It is the leniency of derogations, that's the problem …. Some transfer for the right reasons.There are others that come from break up with their girlfriend and want to go home and do things right, they do not always come back, then they come back two months later, wanting to come back to the team.The source of clemency has been surprising for everyone this year . "

In fact, calls for surrender continue to be granted at the same rate as in recent years: about 65-75% is granted.

Lincoln Riley, coach of Oklahoma: "There is a thread of renunciation for us, then you have to be really clever with your places, for now we do not have a good system to fill them in. Especially when you have a team like we have the portal, which is a good thing, but we have a group of guys who leave early to go to the repechage. "

Riley has secured one of this season's most important portal awards, quarterback transfers, Jalen Hurts, a native of Alabama.

Kirby Smart, coach of Georgia: "A lot of small colleges say:" I'm just going to recruit the portal and stop getting kids signed. "… We would never do that because we're not at the bottom of the hierarchy. I've been talking to guys at this level – I'm not going to repeat their names They'll say, "We're going to save all our scholarships." Instead of signing a class of 25 participants, we're going to sign five of the best high school players we can, then sign 20 on the portal. "

Most of the above scenario would have to do with the transfer of FBS players to lower divisions. FBS players are eligible immediately if they go, for example, to FCS or Division II.

Bill Moos, Nebraska Athletic Director: "I sat in a Big Ten meeting about eight or nine weeks ago.What worries me is that we will be sitting in this room in two years talking about free competition and ceilings I go back to the ranch when it happens. "

I do not know how to pay the players, but the Cornhuskers have been successful on the transfer portal. Eleven Huskers entered the portal in the offseason, according to 247Sports.

Berry, Executive Director of AFCA: "The idea that [players are] walking and we transfer as coaches [is wrong]. Were not. Most of us owe $ 2 million [buyout] at the institution we are leaving ".

Please do not compare transfers to millionaire coaches. These are two different types of freedoms. This buyout is usually paid by the new employer of a coach and certainly does not dissuade him from leaving. Market forces decide coaches' salaries. Arcane and sometimes arbitrary rules have governed the transferability of unpaid players.

Clay Helton, USC Coach: "I hope the kids will be informed about this." This year being new, I think everything has been exaggerated … I have to imagine that there will be a lot of people who will not have any House."

Although unofficial, this list of 247Sports transfer portal indicates that about 400 of these 720 FBS players have not yet found a new school.

Herm Edwards, trainer from the state of Arizona: "Many children have been surprised by the fact that a lot of guys do not have scholarships." There is a little bit now, "Whoa, what has just happened? pass?" I think they assumed their name was on the portal: "I'm going to get a scholarship elsewhere." The unintended consequence hit them in the face. "

One of the concerns of coaches is the depletion – the lack of players. Edwards lost at least eight players on the portal, only winning one, according to 247Sports. This has a significant impact on his ability to keep the limit of 85 stock players. Some coaches have quietly suggested that programs get an extra scholarship for each player they lose on the portal.

Smart, coach of Georgia: "[The transfer issue is]"Where are you going to grow best?" But this is not the society in which we live. We live in the & me, now i want mine now. I want to go play now. "

Love it or hate it, that's why the portal is here.

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