Does the transfer portal actually work in college football?

College football’s free agency?

The correlation between the transfer portal and professional free agency is valid, just as signing a high-school prospect can be compared to drafting a player in professional sports. For ages, the college football model has centered around signing blue-chip recruits out of high school and developing them with the hope of actualizing their potential on the gridiron as they mature. This traditional method did not place pressure on the student-athlete to contribute immediately, but rather after two or three years of development in the system.

Here is the conundrum…do college football coaches have two or three years to develop their incoming high school recruiting class? In most situations, the answer is no. With rising salaries for Division-1 FBS coaches, multimillion-dollar fundraising for facility improvements, and NIL money being distributed like Oprah’s car giveaways, job stability in college football is a roll of the dice. A football staff must win now or prepare to relocate their family to a new city.

Here’s a hypothetical scenario that can shed light on the decision-making process that coaches are subjected to:

Coach A is a newly hired Power 5 coach coming in with large expectations (and a high salary) but inherited a program that went 4-8 last season with a roster full of juniors and seniors. Hired in January, Coach A is not awarded the luxury of bringing in most of his recruiting class during the December signing day period, therefore the majority of the blue-chip high school prospects are off-limits. It is widely known that if Coach A does not exceed the previous 4-8 record this season and make a bowl game appearance the following season, the possibility of being fired is certain.

It is likely that Coach A will have to utilize the transfer portal during the spring semester to acquire talent for the program’s depleted roster. Will the transfer portal be successful? It is hard to tell.

The transfer portal seemingly provides the insurance that the student-athletes are already developed (physically and mentally) from previous programs and can spark a surge in talent.

However, if the student-athlete is such a premier talent acquisition, why are they leaving their previous school? Are they going to buy into your culture? Are they just there for the NIL? Have they simply underachieved? Is the previous school happy that they have moved on?