knox73
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2008
- Messages
- 1,586
- Likes
- 3,113
"There is also an ugly truth about the transfer portal. Although athletes have an abundance of control to choose what they think will be best for their career, they have the freedom to choose incorrectly. New NCAA legislation allows college coaches to take back scholarships for any athlete who enters the portal, going into their next semester. So entering the portal is effectively walking out on a pre-existing scholarship in many cases. This makes sense to a degree, that if you quit on the team they shouldn’t have to pay for you. But in reality, many portal athletes will not find a great landing spot, and some won’t find one at all.
Getting into college sports is like a nationwide game of musical chairs. In every conference and every division there are limited chairs available with scholarships underneath. And to enter the portal is to throw yourself back into the game looking for a better seat. The irony is that the portal might allow you to find a better seat, but after the music stops you could also end up with a worse one. And if you know anything about musical chairs you could have no seat at all. Athletes are playing Russian roulette with their careers, and some will get left out in the cold.
Any athlete who is transferring is doing so because they are in some way unhappy with their current situation. But college sports is effectively a reset button on your sports career. And what that really means is that no matter what you were ranked or projected to do in college, if you are leaving a school because things did not “work out”, new coaches will have to take that into consideration. A 4 star recruit who goes to a power conference school and barely plays, is no longer a 4 star recruit in the portal. The chances of that athlete finding a scholarship at another power conference school are now slim, and anyone transferring should be aware of this. But if you are in Division 2 and similarly unhappy, the portal may not yield much since the only place for you to fall to, if D2 schools don’t want you is likely going to be D3.
It seems we always read about the higher ranked players transferring in and out - is there any data on the kids that are left behind without a landing spot?
Getting into college sports is like a nationwide game of musical chairs. In every conference and every division there are limited chairs available with scholarships underneath. And to enter the portal is to throw yourself back into the game looking for a better seat. The irony is that the portal might allow you to find a better seat, but after the music stops you could also end up with a worse one. And if you know anything about musical chairs you could have no seat at all. Athletes are playing Russian roulette with their careers, and some will get left out in the cold.
Any athlete who is transferring is doing so because they are in some way unhappy with their current situation. But college sports is effectively a reset button on your sports career. And what that really means is that no matter what you were ranked or projected to do in college, if you are leaving a school because things did not “work out”, new coaches will have to take that into consideration. A 4 star recruit who goes to a power conference school and barely plays, is no longer a 4 star recruit in the portal. The chances of that athlete finding a scholarship at another power conference school are now slim, and anyone transferring should be aware of this. But if you are in Division 2 and similarly unhappy, the portal may not yield much since the only place for you to fall to, if D2 schools don’t want you is likely going to be D3.
The Bottom Line
Athletes should not enter the transfer portal without having a good understanding of the recruiting landscape. The devastation for many athletes who enter the portal is that they are given bad advice, or no advice at all. The portal is an option for just about any NCAA athlete today. And it provides an opportunity that even athletes like myself never had. But that does not mean it will always work out the way that you hope. Entering the portal is akin to betting on yourself. And for the thousands of football players who have already placed their bets, I can only hope that they chose the right numbers for their lottery ticket. Unfortunately I wouldn’t put my money on that."It seems we always read about the higher ranked players transferring in and out - is there any data on the kids that are left behind without a landing spot?
