How transfer portal, player contracts could change college football for the better

The transfer portal continues to reign over college athletics.

Thousands of college football players entered the portal during the initial transfer window, and many are wondering whether this will be the new norm in college sports, or if the NCAA will cave and treat college athletes like professionals.

“We are barreling towards having these [player] contracts, whether it is true revenue sharing whether the players are deemed as actual employees,” On3’s Jesse Simonton told Andy Staples. “Like you said, the coaches don’t really care, but I made a kind of a joking line that they’re ready to give up a piece of the pie, i.e. their salary money, just for some actual offseason peace.”

On one hand, player contracts could be a logistics nightmare for those running college athletics. Not only would they tie a certain player to a certain team — but what happens if that athlete wants out of their contract? Players potentially buying out their contracts and paying a university’s athletic department to allow that athlete to attend and play another school would be a sticky situation for everyone involved to navigate.

More positively, the contracts would also allow the athlete a set amount of annual compensation, or even a salary for playing for that team. While that is a whole other conversation regarding individual state NIL laws, it also begs the question what turning college sports into a professional model would look like.

“Matt Rhule kind of said this. If we basically are a professional sport, but just not a name, because we’re not doing the things, i.e. the contracts. We’re going down a line where we need to actually act like professionals,” Simonton continued. “Doing OTAs and kind of eliminating what has always been spring practice makes perfect sense. Some have suggested, ultimately we may have a transfer portal combine down the road.

“A lot of head coaches are a little bit more reticent to say this because they aren’t getting into the weeds. But when you talk to the personnel directors, the assistant coaches and recruiting coordinators, they’ll fully admit that half the time they don’t know these guys. They don’t know their parents, they don’t know the background. They don’t know if they have accurate height, weight speed.”

Simonton spoke to Marshall head coach Charles Huff recently and Huff noted that he is curious to know how much money the Thundering Herd have lost by bringing in transfer portal players on a whim for official visits and it ultimately not working out. A combine would be cutting those costs down, players can get recognized in a way they might otherwise not and coaches can get an accurate reading for the players they’re recruiting.

Whether the transfer portal model changes in the near future remains to be seen, but with over 2,200 portalers this cycle — Simonton revealed that over 1,100 of those are uncommitted. Over a thousand college football players are working through an uncertain future. If it doesn’t work out, what then?

“A lot of coaches have said this — that it’s not sustainable,” he said. “This wild, wild west deal that several of them use with some good colorful language. It’s not sustainable. We have to, as the collective college football universe, have to kind of figure out ways to make it equitable for everyone, for the player, for the coaches and for the schools.”