Again - will Randy be able to slow play us into a better roster by catching kids that find themselves homeless in July? We all sure hope so.
Explaining the biggest peril of the NCAA transfer portal
Explaining the biggest peril of the NCAA transfer portal
After debuting Oct. 15, 2018,
college football’s transfer portal is seven months old. It remains as busy as ever. Ten players entered the transfer portal Monday of this week, per sources. There’s been a steady trickle of activity on the transfer market almost daily since the turn of the calendar year.
There are still big names remaining, too.
Penn State’s
Tommy Stevens, Michigan’s
Brandon Peters and Bowling Green starting QB
Jarret Doege will find comfortable landing spots. And there’s instant impact help at every other position on the board. Many of those dominoes will soon fall as schools across the country hold graduations and summer rosters are set in stone.
There were 1,398 FBS players who had entered the portal as of Monday morning – 770 from the Power Five – according to a source. Expand that out to Division I as a whole, and there were 2,347 players in the system. Many of those prospects have found a new home or a fresh start. A lot of them will make an impact in Year 1.
Yet as we hit the midway point of May, it’s hard not to turn an eye toward the perils of the portal.
247Sports keeps a running tab of the transfer portal on our site with the large majority of those 1,398 FBS players listed within our system. Of the group we’ve tracked, there were still 413 position players who’ve yet to find a new destination as of Monday.
For example, 23 quarterbacks had yet to land in a new place. That’s a position where there are very few spots available and fewer reps. At this point in the year it’s hard for a QB transfer to find a destination where he can make an immediate impact, unless you’re somebody with immense talent (Peters) or a proven history (Doege).
There is a myriad of reasons why players are included in that group of over 400 unsigned prospects.
Some are silently committed places and want to graduate before making their announcements.
Others want to wait until they officially graduate before taking visits. Some are in the portal after behavioral issues at their previous school and are largely untouchable. Others still are being slow-played by coaching staffs as they wait for dominoes to fall on their board.
247Sports has spoken to various players in those above positions over the last few weeks and months, and many of them will find homes. It just might not always be the place the player envisioned.
Take a scroll through the transfer portal and you’ll often see a formerly highly-ranked first or second-year player land a spot you might not expect (Toneil Carter, our photo choice for this story, was a former four-star recruit who spent two years at Texas, playing just one, and transferred to FCS Sam Houston State). The transfer portal gives players agency to explore their options without asking permission from their old school. But there’s no guarantee a prospect finds a better or more high-profile situation. There’s also no way for a player to know if his scholarship will be there if he enters his name in the portal and decides to return. Once a player enters the portal the previous school is under no obligation to keep said player on scholarship.
As the months go by, we’re seeing the transfer portal for what it is – a risk.
Not only are FBS players on the move, but schools are also adding FCS, Division II, Division III and JUCO players to their rosters. Those players move up the ladder, which generally means somebody must fall down. There are only 85 scholarships per team and schools can only add 25 signees a cycle. That limits who can go where.
The most talented players will always find a home. So will those with a proven history of production. But those undervalued talents looking for an opportunity at a new school? There are no guarantees. With 400-plus FBS players looking for a better situation, we’re seeing that risk play out live.
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