Blitz Podcast: College football coaching carousels and transfer portals

This week’s Saturday Blitz Podcast offers an early offseason discussion about the college football coaching carousel as well as players in the transfer portal.

We are now officially into the long offseason. All of the national championships have been decided at every level of the sport. Across the country, state bragging rights have been settled by programs large and small. Everything now is either reflection or projection, without the fun of actual games upon which to reflect or project, as we dive into our offseason period for the Saturday Blitz Podcast.

As fanatics of college football know, though, the season never truly ends for a program. This is the period when we get into the churn, as coaching staffs shuffle around and players seek out new colleges at which to matriculate.

The annual game of musical chairs is what drives our focus this week in the Saturday Blitz Podcast. With the grill all packed up for the 2019 season, it is time to turn attention forward to the impacts of what has already transpired and what is yet to come.

This week the podcast begins by revisiting the topic of coaching changes. The annual coaching carousel has, as of this recording, claimed 22 coaching staffs around the country. Every year there is an inevitable churn, and this is actually the lowest mark in three seasons. The coaching carousel, year after year, takes out somewhere between 15 and 25 percent of coaching staffs around the country.

2019 is no exception. Looking at which conferences suffered the most churn, we break down the coaches who are set up to succeed immediately and which could be in hot water sooner rather than later.

From there we discuss a more modern trend, that of the NCAA transfer portal. Despite its mystical name, the portal as fans know by now is little more than a spreadsheet at the NCAA’s Indianapolis headquarters that opens the door for a player to offer up their services to a new institution of higher learning.

Quarterbacks are always the biggest story when it comes to transfers, as a transfer quarterback just won the College Football Playoff national championship and transfers have won each of the past three Heismans. But the transfer portal is about more than just passers, and this week’s podcast also dives in to talk about some of the other big names that have moved all over the field as well as some thoughts more generally on player movement in college football.

As always, you can listen in to the discussion through the above player. You can also follow this link to download the latest episode.

The season might be over, but there is always something to talk about when it comes to the gridiron!

The Saturday Blitz Podcast is part of the FanSided Radio Network at Spreaker. The show goes live every Wednesday morning. You can reach John Mitchell at @jlmitchell93 and Zach Bigalke at @zbigalke on Twitter.