Coaches look to abate portal chaos. One solution: transfer windows
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Bret Bielema knew when he got the Illinois job in 2021 that he needed to embrace the transfer portal.
"I knew when (Illinois athletic director) Josh (Whitman) started interviewing me that this was going to be an area that I felt had to be a positive at Illinois. I needed to use it in a better way than our competition,” said Bielema.
Bielema is among a nation of coaches trying to navigate the portal with aplomb. The Fighting Illini boss has a personal department devoted to mining talent from the portal, college football’s answer to free-agency.
While the portal has created opportunity to augment a roster quickly, it also has wrought chaos when it comes to managing a roster. What can be done to bring some order to the transformative portal, which has altered the landscape of college football?
The switch to the portal was turned on in October 2018. (New regulations were adopted in 2021 allowing student-athletes to change schools using the portal once without sitting out a year.) Athletes have since flooded the portal for myriad reasons. At the top of the list: The search for playing time.
The portal is a nod to the players who for too long had been restricted in movement. While coaches could come and go on a whim from job to job, football players had to sit out a season if they opted to switch schools. Exasperating the situation was the fact coaches often blocked players from transferring to certain schools.
“I love the transfer portal for how it was designed and the original intent of what it is for, to help the student-athlete,” said a Power Five head coach. “Our school has benefited from the portal. We've also lost players to the portal. But, at the end of the day, it's for the student-athlete.
"But, when NIL plus the portal plus recruiting collide, those are the issues we're having right now as college coaches look at it.”
The portal has its share of critics among the coaching ranks.
“I think the biggest issue now probably more than anything is just a lack of when guys can go in and the stress it's putting on your roster to be managed when guys are leaving,” said a Big Ten head coach. “And then to try and replace them.”
The unfettered movement by players in and out of the portal has made managing a roster cumbersome for coaches.
“It’s not inherently bad,” said a Big Ten defensive coordinator. “But it needs framework. There has to be a window. You can't have kids leave during the season.
“We're completely jacking up the integrity of the season at the highest level. So, there's got to be some framework of when kids are allowed to go and how that operates, because you can't give them free-agency and let them set the rules to that. It's too much.”
One piece of framework that's in place came and went on May 1. That was the day players had to be in the portal if they wanted to be eligible in the coming season. The one exception: Grad transfers can still leave post-May 1 and be eligible in 2022. Other players can still be eligible, but they need approval via a waiver.
"Right now, our roster management is almost impossible to know what type of team you're going to have, almost all the way up probably until training camp," said the Power Five head coach.
"There are guys that are getting hurt in spring ball and then people are just going to the portal to replace them and refill their roster, where before you couldn't necessarily do that. And you don't know come May 1 all up until then who's gonna leave and who's gonna stay. You can be deep in one position today and not deep tomorrow. So, how do the rules change that you can lose 10 players in one day? And now all of a sudden, how do you replace that with initial scholarships?"
The one thing coaches want: Structure and predictability. And that could be achieved with transfer windows.
According to a recent report on FootballScoop.com, transfer windows are an element coaches would be in favor of because it would mitigate roster management issues.
Coaches would like a transfer window that coincides with the recruiting calendar so they can know who’s on their roster. Potential date ranges include the last Sunday of November through the early-signing period in December. The other window possibly could be from April 15-May 1.
The goal is that by the time a player leaves campus after the spring semester, he is either committed to returning to a school or already is in the portal.
“I'd say number one is trying to have a calendar with restrictions on when guys can go in, when they can visit and then be able to just replace what you lose,” said the Big Ten head coach. “That's the smart thing to do.”
Another idea: Make transfers sign letters-of-intent. No such binding document is required of players exiting the portal. So, players aren’t officially members of their new school until they enroll.
“There's got to be some sort of National Letter-of-Intent," said a second Big Ten coach. "There needs to be some sort of transfer agreement, some term like that.
“You can't manage the roster until they show up. We're holding a scholarship for some of them. If I'm agreeing to go on grant aid, I should have to sign a university tender or something to make it binding.”
Until more structure and order is brought to the machinations of the transfer portal, coaches have to stay nimble and embrace the chaos.
“There's nothing that I'm gonna say that's negative about it because right, wrong or indifferent, depending on the opinions, the families and the student-athletes feel like it helps them,” said the Power Five head coach.
“So, anything that helps the student-athlete, I'm for. But, again, as adults, you have to look at it and say, ‘OK, if they all collide and they're all being used in a way that's counterproductive for why it was created, I think that's where the rules and bylaws and standards need to come in.’ “
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