Secrets of the college football transfer portal: ‘There’s definitely tampering going on’ (The Athletic)

[BRS24]

The Athletic just posted an article - Secrets of the college football transfer portal: ‘There’s definitely tampering going on’

"The standout running back from a Group of 5 program got an unsolicited call from a coach at a Power 5 program.

The coach made a promise: Come here, and we can make sure you make the most of your name, image and likeness.

And he put a number on it: $200,000.

The problem? This particular running back wasn’t one of the more than 1,000 FBS scholarship football players who entered his name in the transfer portal during the past year."

Wowza.

 

[Exit 4]

The Athletic just posted an article - Secrets of the college football transfer portal: ‘There’s definitely tampering going on’

"The standout running back from a Group of 5 program got an unsolicited call from a coach at a Power 5 program.

The coach made a promise: Come here, and we can make sure you make the most of your name, image and likeness.

And he put a number on it: $200,000.

The problem? This particular running back wasn’t one of the more than 1,000 FBS scholarship football players who entered his name in the transfer portal during the past year."

Wowza.

Yep - of course.

 

[Alum1620]

The Athletic just posted an article - Secrets of the college football transfer portal: ‘There’s definitely tampering going on’

"The standout running back from a Group of 5 program got an unsolicited call from a coach at a Power 5 program.

The coach made a promise: Come here, and we can make sure you make the most of your name, image and likeness.

And he put a number on it: $200,000.

The problem? This particular running back wasn’t one of the more than 1,000 FBS scholarship football players who entered his name in the transfer portal during the past year."

Wowza.

What everyone saw coming with the portal and the lack of a standard set of rules from the NCAA on NIL

 

[noeynox]

The Athletic just posted an article - Secrets of the college football transfer portal: ‘There’s definitely tampering going on’

"The standout running back from a Group of 5 program got an unsolicited call from a coach at a Power 5 program.

The coach made a promise: Come here, and we can make sure you make the most of your name, image and likeness.

And he put a number on it: $200,000.

The problem? This particular running back wasn’t one of the more than 1,000 FBS scholarship football players who entered his name in the transfer portal during the past year."

Wowza.

This was always the Goal of the "Autonomy 5". Cherry pick the rosters of the lesser schools.

 

[uconndogs]

The Athletic just posted an article - Secrets of the college football transfer portal: ‘There’s definitely tampering going on’

"The standout running back from a Group of 5 program got an unsolicited call from a coach at a Power 5 program.

The coach made a promise: Come here, and we can make sure you make the most of your name, image and likeness.

And he put a number on it: $200,000.

The problem? This particular running back wasn’t one of the more than 1,000 FBS scholarship football players who entered his name in the transfer portal during the past year."

Wowza.

This will be SOP moving forward. This was entirely predictable with NIL. These kids for all intent and purposes will be free agents. The NCAA had the chance to manage this years ago, but the train left the station long ago and major college athletics will never look the same again.

I firmly believe that 40 or so universities will break away from the NCAA (at least for football) and form what will really be a professional sports league. Now that holds absolutely no interest for me, but maybe there's a big and profitable market for that and it is what it is.

 

[Exit 4]

What everyone saw coming with the portal and the lack of a standard set of rules from the NCAA on NIL

Why should their be rules on cherry picking? I see only a few provisions the NCAA could possible police; i) no student athletes shall be recognized or paid directly as if they are an employee and ii) general eligibility (including transfer rules)/academic enrollment rules, everything else is free market mania.

Pro sports can have tampering rules because its paid labor and for profit enterprise all operating under a collective contract.

The only reasonable curb to all this is to strictly limit student athletes to 1 free immediate eligibility transfer over their careers.

 

[UConnJim]

This was always the Goal of the "Autonomy 5". Cherry pick the rosters of the lesser schools.

Except, it’s been a rare occurrence, at least so far, as very few G5 players move up to P5. It appears the biggest beneficiaries of the transfer portal are the G5. For example, Alabama was loaded at running back, so Jerome Ford transferred to Cincinnati and helped lead them to the playoff. Go look at P5 rosters and you wont find many G5 transfers, but P5 transfers are all over G5 rosters. UMass had 10 P5 transfers on their roster last year.

 

[Alum1620]

Why should their be rules on cherry picking? I see only a few provisions the NCAA could possible police; i) no student athletes shall be recognized or paid directly as if they are an employee and ii) general eligibility (including transfer rules)/academic enrollment rules, everything else is free market mania.

Pro sports can have tampering rules because its paid labor and for profit enterprise all operating under a collective contract.

The only reasonable curb to all this is to strictly limit student athletes to 1 free immediate eligibility transfer over their careers.

The lack of cohesion of the NIL rules as each state has different versions was what I was commenting on and how that mixed with the opening up of the transfer rules would lead instances like this

 

[Exit 4]

The lack of cohesion of the NIL rules as each state has different versions was what I was commenting on and how that mixed with the opening up of the transfer rules would lead instances like this

Attempts for central regulation on NIL is a dangerous political game for the NCAA....Washington is not going to like it....And moreover the NCAA cannot get its member Universities to agree on much.

 

[noeynox]

Except, it’s been a rare occurrence, at least so far, as very few G5 players move up to P5. It appears the biggest beneficiaries of the transfer portal are the G5. For example, Alabama was loaded at running back, so Jerome Ford transferred to Cincinnati and helped lead them to the playoff. Go look at P5 rosters and you wont find many G5 transfers, but P5 transfers are all over G5 rosters. UMass had 10 P5 transfers on their roster last year.

It will take time, but the top is looking to make everyone else essentially a juco. Stories like that one will happen far more than they come to light.

 

[Alum1620]

Attempts for central regulation on NIL is a dangerous political game for the NCAA....Washington is not going to like it....And moreover the NCAA cannot get its member Universities to agree on much.

The problem is not having any central level of control at any level for it and having 50 different versions is also a dangerous game

 

[Exit 4]

The problem is not having any central level of control at any level for it and having 50 different versions is also a dangerous game

What do you want to control? Under my view, there is nothing to control but the things a University can actually control. A while back I proposed that NIL contracts would be standardized and required to be registered in a clearing house so that all parties knew who was getting what from whom. I suppose that is something, but it certainly wouldn't set prices and/or limitations, it only puts the $$ in the clear blue open and many schools would be vehemently opposed as such a data center would create a new arena for programs to compete. Also, establishing a clearing house would also mean you need rules and punishments for violators...so here we go again creating another system to investigate and punish (which doesn't thrill me). And the clearing house would do noting to prevent so called "tampering" - nothing at all.

 

[Alum1620]

What do you want to control? Under my view, there is nothing to control but the things a University can actually control. A while back I proposed that NIL contracts would be standardized and required to be registered in a clearing house so that all parties knew who was getting what from whom. I suppose that is something, but it certainly wouldn't set prices and/or limitations, it only puts the $$ in the clear blue open and many schools would be vehemently opposed as such a data center would create a new arena for programs to compete. Also, establishing a clearing house would also mean you need rules and punishments for violators...so here we go again creating another system to investigate and punish (which doesn't thrill me). And the clearing house would do noting to prevent so called "tampering" - nothing at all.

Basically I just want it to not turn into where schools are using it to make deals to get kids to commit and especially if they company employs a coach in some capacity, and if it is being used by schools to give payments to players under the guise of NIL

 

[Exit 4]

Basically I just want it to not turn into where schools are using it to make deals to get kids to commit and especially if they company employs a coach in some capacity, and if it is being used by schools to give payments to players under the guise of NIL

Too late. Let the market make its own mistakes...there will be plenty of mistakes....like the sea of dead money in fired coaches salaries. Oh well.

 

[Dizzy21]

The thing about the above scenario is that the 200k is not to lure the athlete to the P5, it would have happened most likely without the money. The 200k is just to keep another P5 out of the picture. Good kids were already favoring the big time P5 schools as it is and there are only a certain amount of spots, so its not like this is a major talent drain on the G5, they weren't exactly getting the same talent already.

It does create an opportunity for lower tiered schools to poach from bigger programs though, which was a much harder sell before. Alabama and Georgia and all the other big time schools were getting the good players before, its not like they can suck up more of them, there is no room, but now this makes a smaller school with deep pocket donors a player in the game, which may end up expanding the football talent spectrum across more teams and potentially making it more difficult for one or two top teams to stack all of the talent.

 

[Alum1620]

The thing about the above scenario is that the 200k is not to lure the athlete to the P5, it would have happened most likely without the money. The 200k is just to keep another P5 out of the picture. Good kids were already favoring the big time P5 schools as it is and there are only a certain amount of spots, so its not like this is a major talent drain on the G5, they weren't exactly getting the same talent already.

It does create an opportunity for lower tiered schools to poach from bigger programs though, which was a much harder sell before. Alabama and Georgia and all the other big time schools were getting the good players before, its not like they can suck up more of them, there is no room, but now this makes a smaller school with deep pocket donors a player in the game, which may end up expanding the football talent spectrum across more teams and potentially making it more difficult for one or two top teams to stack all of the talent.

It has already happened for a million+

 

[UConnJim]

It will take time, but the top is looking to make everyone else essentially a juco. Stories like that one will happen far more than they come to light.

There will be a couple of players, but I don't think there will be a big impact. If the P5 wanted to go after the best G5 players the past few years, what has been stopping them? The reality is on the top P5 rosters (the ones that can pay), most of the backups are probably as good as the best G5 starters, but they aren't playing. It's more likely the top P5 backups are going to look for new homes at other P5 or G5 schools so that they can play.

Unless scholarship limit rules are relaxed, and they will be to some extent, it's a risky strategy to bring in too many 1 or 2 year players.

 

[uconnfan68]

Except, it’s been a rare occurrence, at least so far, as very few G5 players move up to P5. It appears the biggest beneficiaries of the transfer portal are the G5. For example, Alabama was loaded at running back, so Jerome Ford transferred to Cincinnati and helped lead them to the playoff. Go look at P5 rosters and you wont find many G5 transfers, but P5 transfers are all over G5 rosters. UMass had 10 P5 transfers on their roster last year.

Yup, probably the bottom dwellers of the P5 that at the most risk.

 

[ZooCougar]

Well everyone bemoaned the plight of the players. And now you have free agency. And college football beginning to circle the drain.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

Nice payday for Mensah!

 

[TheDrifter75]

So, never before NIL did a rep of one team call a player of another team and say come play here. Oh, and we'll make sure you get $$$.

It was against the rules before, it's against the rules now. There is now a portal. If a player isn't in it he is still off limits.

 

[CL82]

It will take time, but the top is looking to make everyone else essentially a juco. Stories like that one will happen far more than they come to light.

The portal functions exactly the way it was designed, namely providing a vehicle by which the P5 can harvest the best of other ‘lesser’ institutions and at the same time provide them with a method to efficiently cull their own rosters of undesired and or under performing players. For our purposes, it’s probably a good thing, in the near term at least, since it provides us with an opportunity to upgrade our talent with P5 cast offs.

 

[UConnJim]

The portal functions exactly the way it was designed, namely providing a vehicle by which the P5 can harvest the best of other ‘lesser’ institutions and at the same time provide them with a method to efficiently cull their own rosters of undesired and or under performing players. For our purposes, it’s probably a good thing, in the near term at least, since it provides us with an opportunity to upgrade our talent with P5 cast offs.

CL82, it's just not happening that way. Sure, you may see a desperate P5 school after a coaching change chase some kids, but most of the P5 would prefer to bring in a high 3*, 4*, or 5* high school kid with 4 years of eligibility or a P5 transfer than a good G5 kid with maybe 1 year of eligibility. There has been nothing stopping the P5 from going after G5 players and if you look at the portal data over the past 3 years, you just don't see the P5 raiding G5 rosters.

 

[Nextmanup]

So, never before NIL did a rep of one team call a player of another team and say come play here. Oh, and we'll make sure you get $$$.

It was against the rules before, it's against the rules now. There is now a portal. If a player isn't in it he is still off limits.

I know for a fact some coaches reached out to one of our senior players during our 2020 not playing season and asked him to leave UConn and come to their school. Said player wasn’t in the portal and they were trying to poach him right out from under the coaches noses. It happens more than you think

 

[CL82]

CL82, it's just not happening that way. Sure, you may see a desperate P5 school after a coaching change chase some kids, but most of the P5 would prefer to bring in a high 3*, 4*, or 5* high school kid with 4 years of eligibility or a P5 transfer than a good G5 kid with maybe 1 year of eligibility. There has been nothing stopping the P5 from going after G5 players and if you look at the portal data over the past 3 years, you just don't see the P5 raiding G5 rosters.

Interesting, I haven’t looked at it that closely, but I may during the basketball off-season. That would be interesting information to see.