Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione rips college football for impact of transfer portal, NIL

Many prominent figures have called out college football over recent weeks and months due to the impacts the transfer portal and NIL have had on the landscape of the sport. Recently, Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione ripped the transfer portal and NIL in a radio interview for what they have done to college football.

With the transfer portal and NIL taking over college sports at the same time, Castiglione said he feels some coaches feel “trapped,” when trying to construct a roster. Castiglione has seen the impacts of both firsthand, especially with the portal, as many Oklahoma players entered and left the program following the departure of former head coach Lincoln Riley.

“I hate to be a ‘I told you so’ kind of person but this is what we tried to fight against, this is ridiculous to be candid,” Castiglione said. “Everybody wants to go back to what they thought it was going to be, but the combination of now the transfer portal and name, image and likeness and a number of other changes hitting at one time, people are leveraging one against the other. I’ve talked to coaches and they feel trapped in a way.

“Maybe not the right word but they’re sitting there trying to re-shape a roster and you’re working on prospects of athletes that are coming out of high school in a traditional way, players on your team that have now entered the transfer portal so you have to fill spots you didn’t expect, and then you fill them with a high school athlete or transfer portal individual and when you bring them into the program, somebody on the team gets mad because of the person you brought in, so they go to the transfer portal.”

Castiglione: ‘It’s off the rails’

Castiglione definitely understands the benefits of the transfer portal, and Oklahoma has added a few contributors through that avenue as the Sooners tried to put together the roster under new head coach Brent Venables. But there is a line to be drawn, and Castiglione thinks that things have gone way beyond that point.

“It’s a never-ending situation it seems like,” Castiglione said. “So coaches will obviously tell you that there’s a premium on recruiting and retaining your current players and obviously managing the portal as best you can, the door swings both ways obviously. If you lose a player, you have an opportunity to replace that player more quickly than you can through the traditional recruiting of a high school or junior college athlete but right now that is really difficult.

“And it’s gone beyond what is a reasonable transfer purpose because now we’re seeing players that are transferring to their third if not fourth school since they’ve entered. … So it’s off the rails.”