NCAA's transfer portal is far from a finished product

Almost every rule the NCAA has ever established has been a work in process.

No idea ever starts perfect. It gets tweaked through the years, maybe as the culture of the sport changes.

The latest example is the new transfer portal which allows college football and basketball players to stick their names in a national database making themselves available for transfer.

The original intent of the first-year rule was to give athletes the right to control their careers. If a head coach can leave a school anytime to advance to a more lucrative job, why don’t players have the right to find better situations?

The immediate fallout is players, many disgruntled for whatever reason, are placing and yanking their names in and out of the transfer portal. An example is LSU cornerback Kelvin Joseph, who was in and then out of the transfer portal in May and now is back in it as of Monday.

Liberal use of the transfer portal accelerated the fact that NCAA has already granted 65 waivers to transfers to allow them to play immediately instead of sitting out a year as stated by the NCAA rules.

There are more players in the transfer portal than available scholarships.

“When we started with the transfer portal, it was a mechanism for players to be able to say `I'm transferring, so everybody knows that I'm transferring’,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said Wednesday here at the 35th annual SEC Football Kickoff Media Days. “So, if that creates opportunities for me to go different places, then that's a good thing for the player.

“The issue with the transfer portal is we've gotten very liberal in giving people waivers, so, when we do that, it becomes free agency, which I don't think is good for college football. I don't think it's good for fans.”

The large number of waffling players have driven head coaches over the edge trying to manage their rosters.

“It's like my father always told me,” Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said. “If you're changing or you're leaving, tell me why; give me a good reason, not `because I feel like it.' And, two, what's the plan on the other end? “I don't think a lot of guys always plan the other end of it out and have an idea where they're going. Is there a legit reason for leaving?

“I do with our players. I say, `Okay, if you're leaving, I get it. Tell me why you're leaving. Now, tell me what you want to do and what you're trying to accomplish.’ If they can't do that, I say, `Why don't you go back and think about it. You know what I'm saying?’ I think as coaches you've got to help them make those decisions.”

In June, the NCAA Division I council approved a package of updated guidelines that supposedly specify and narrow the circumstances in which athletes should be given waivers.

Whether it slows the flood of transfers remains to be seen. But the NCAA needs to go several steps further.

“I think that they should limit the time in which a young man can transfer,” LSU coach Ed Orgeron said. “It should be after spring ball. It should be after he completed his spring semester. He should be eligible before he entered the transfer portal. It should be about a week and give them a decision and let them go.”

It’s the view of most coaches that athletes should do everything possible not to transfer, especially when they feel like they have to fight for playing time.

Some players believe teammates shouldn’t cut and run when the going gets tough.

“I don’t really like the transfer portal,” Arkansas linebacker De’Jon Harris said. “I feel like everybody should have to sit back and earn their spot, like everybody else in college football. I feel like highly recruited guys who hit the transfer portal always wind up eligible at another school and guys at smaller schools have to sit out.”

Nobody knows how long it will take for the transfer rules to settle into a form that’s equitable for coaches and players. The journey to that point should be fascinating.

"It will probably be some rough waters still for the next couple of years for everybody involved,” Florida coach Dan Mullen said. “There's a lot of a learning curve that goes on and will continue to be a lot of learning curve for both players, coaches and administrations within the transfer portal for the next couple of years until everybody adapts to it.

“There's going to be a new norm in college football. It's going to be very different than it's been.”