NCAA College Football Transfer Portal Op-Ed

I’ve wondered more than once this year why Chip Kelly was referring to his team’s youth and needing to start so many freshmen since that was the mantra for last year’s team-his first year leading the Bruins. But then I realized that players from UCLA have bailed into the NCAA College Football Transfer Portal, since it’s beginning in 2018, at twice the average of the rest of the PAC-12. And although this is just the second full year of the portal’s existence enough has happened to come to the conclusion that the coaches of teams that are trying to build a program back up from the basement or just trying to get to the next level are baring the brunt of the burden as any one of their players who are unhappy for any reason can choose to enter the portal in order to connect with a team that has a better winning record, is getting more national attention and TV time, who will put them in a position to start as opposed to sitting on the bench, etc. I don’t imagine the portal has caused much commotion for Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide but I do think that the system, that was created to provide player empowerment and more autonomy for the athletes, which was needed, has unfortunately also undermined to some degree what little parity there is in college football.

In other words the rich will continue to get rich as the really strong programs, who can afford it, will hold back a few scholarships in order to pick off high potential athletes in the portal who decided for a change. However, since just 2% of the athletes who are playing college football will ever make it onto any professional football roster the rest who get trapped in the portal, finding no team deciding to pick them up and a former team that they have abandoned who has no obligation to bring them back, won’t learn many of life’s enduring lessons by sticking it out, working hard together, improving yourself, and prevailing over adversity. These are lessons that can last a lifetime and for the 98% of kids that won’t be playing on Sunday they’re much more valuable than getting some ego satisfying face time on Saturday’s college football television broadcast. For a little more info on the college transfer portal check out Andy Staples article in Sports Illustrated that he wrote earlier this year entitled; “The Double-Edged Sword of the Transfer Portal” at https://www.si.com/college-football/2019/02/18/transfer-portal-scholarship-limits-initial-counter-rule as well as Ethan Sears article in the NY Post entitled; “College football: Transfer portal’s winners and losers in 2019” at https://nypost.com/2019/08/26/college-football-transfer-portals-winners-and-losers-in-2019/