I don’t even view these guys as students at this point. They are just paid mercenaries floating from one team to the next. I might do the same if I were in their shoes. But, as a fan, it dampens the enthusiasm for the sport and the team knowing that the players are not playing their team or their school. They are playing only for themselves.
It's basically the NFL with everyone on one-year contracts at this point. I don't know how a league sustains itself long-term this way. It's virtually impossible for fans to build any connection with players and for any player development to occur. If I were a mid-tier team, I'd consider just not bothering with high school recruiting - odds of those players still being on your team in a few years by the time they are any good are low. Every year, just build a whole new team of juniors and seniors from the portal.
Eventually they will just let schools straight up pay athletes. That way schools can offer 4 year contracts if they want.
Doesn't that start next year with a cap of $20.5 million? This year doesn't really count because of the "frontloading" that happened just prior to the settlement being formally approved.
Agreed - one-and-done at least was limited to a handful of players. This is like that on steroids with basically huge chunks of teams transferring every year.
I would really hate to give up on CFB like I did with CBB 20 years ago, but that might actually be a good thing.
Read something that 30-50% of the kids going into the portal aren't even signing with new schools. I'm guessing a lot of these kids are getting bad advice from their "agents" and parents.
Painting with a very broad brush, I think there are two main types of players that enter the transfer portal: (1) Players who have exceeded expectations and want to cash in and (2) Players who have not lived up to expectations and want a reboot. Those in the first group are out to capitalize on their success. They will have no problem finding programs higher up in the food that want them, offering more money and more exposure. Those in the second group are the ones who give up scholarships and don't find another taker. The parents of these kids have failed their children, IMO, because a four-year, fully paid scholarship is so valuable when there is no legit chance at a professional career. Chasing one's dream at all costs is usually a losing proposition.
In a transfer portal world, though, the scholarships are year-to-year too. Remember when Deion came on board and basically said he was going to kick everyone off the team because they weren't good enough? Now that you're not limited to recruiting freshmen, it's easier to find transfers and then not renew previous people's scholarships. Or in many cases, a perfectly competent player will be "upgraded" by a transfer portal player, so if the original player wants to keep playing, they have to transfer to a slightly worse team. The system kind of sucks for everybody because a player has to decide whether to leave before they definitively know if they'll get replaced.
If a significant number of players are transferring because they fear their scholarship may be pulled, then the system is way more messed up than I thought.
