Lane Kiffin on NCAA Transfer Portal, college football free agency

Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin delivered his opinion on the issues caused by the NCAA transfer portal, calling it “free agency” in college football in his Monday press conference. The transfer portal has opened up athletes to seek out new schools to play for without penalty to their eligibility, drawing praise and criticism alike.

Lane Kiffin on NCAA Transfer Portal

“I don’t think people really say it this way, but let’s not make a mistake — we have free agency in college football,” stated Kiffin in a Monday press appearance. “The kids a lot of times go to where they get paid the most. No one else is saying that maybe, but the kids say ‘this is what I’m getting here for NIL.’ And so what we really have is what it is — free agency has been created in college football. Except you can’t lock people into a contract, they can go at any time. So it’s a new world that we’re in. Sometimes they want to come to you and say ‘I get this much money if I go there.’ So this is just a whole new thing to deal with.

“They did get relief this year with the extra ones, and getting out on the road there’s a lot of frustration with junior college coaches. High school coaches have a lot of frustration because they feel like kids that were right on that bottom level of getting offers and going places in the bottom of the classes now aren’t. Because people are using them up on transfers. So now they’ve got high school kids with nowhere to go where they had places.

“Like anything, usually when you create something to solve this issue over here it creates other issues. So there’s a lot of issues with it and you got your own guys — and now you’re dealing with guys that wanna go but you still want them to play in the game or practice and stuff. Now we really have guys in the free agency market going around on visits that are still practicing and playing here.

“At least in the NFL there’s free agent contracts so they know what it is and they’ve gotta sign it versus these places saying ‘Hey when you come here you’re going to get this much money.’ And then when they get there do they really get it? They need a contract. So very new world.”

Transfer portal background information 

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be  contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.