Mel Tucker, Ryan Day weigh in on NFL comparisons in recruiting

INDIANAPOLIS — As the transfer portal landscape continues to evolve around college football the comparisons are rolling in to the NFL model. “Free agency” has been thrown around, coaches are now tasked with balancing the high school recruiting trail with the portal.

Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker and Ohio State head coach Ryan Day have both been in those NFL circles, but share different approaches to the current recruiting landscape.

During his opening press conference at Big Ten Media Days, Tucker — a former NFL defensive coordinator — discussed his approach to recruiting. He’s had success both at the high school and transfer levels on the trail, notably landing Wake Forest transfer and 2021 Doak Walker Award winner Kenneth Walker III last year and bringing in the No. 24 recruiting class in the country from the class of 2022, according to the On3 Consensus Team Recruiting Ranking.

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Tucker has found a balance, and it stems from his NFL days.

“We embrace the portal,” Tucker said. “We’re going to build our team through the high school ranks. It’s very similar to what we did while I was in the NFL. You want to build through the draft. You complement or supplement your roster through free agency.

“So the high school ranks, for us, is the draft. The portal is free agency.”

But Day, who spent two years in the NFL as a quarterbacks coach, isn’t ready to say college football is at that point. He thinks the NFL Draft has some differences because those coaches don’t have to recruit, but added the college football model could be heading in that direction.

“The difference I would just say is when you’re drafting, you have a draft and when you say you picked them, they get to go to your [team],” Day told reporters. “In college, you’ve got to talk them into going to your school or you’ve got to recruit them to going to your school. There’s a lot of differences there.

“But I do think as we start to create more and more rules that I think it will start to look more like that down the road.”

Ohio State has the nation’s No. 4-ranked recruiting class coming in this season, but only has two transfers coming in via the portal. However, one of them is Tanner McAllister, who played for new Buckeyes defensive coordinator Jim Knowles at Oklahoma State, so Day used the portal to fill that need.

Nonetheless, the portal might not be done evolving just yet. Last week, the NCAA D-I Council recommended eliminating the one-time transfer policy so long as a player declares his intent to transfer in the assigned windows. The current rules say players can only transfer once with immediate eligibility, and the NCAA Board of Directors will vote on the recommendation next month.