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Colorado head coach Deion Sanders, one of college football’s top portal users, is calling for a change to the sport’s current transfer rules.
He believes that players need to stick with their commitments as opposed to having free rein.
On3 Sports referenced a recent interview where Coach Prime was heard saying there needs to be more “stick-to-itiveness” in what’s essentially become free agency.
The transfer portal is as active as ever as thousands of players weigh their options of joining new programs. In many of those cases, we’re seeing star players bolt for greener pastures – whether that be for a better NIL opportunity or a chance to play for a more prominent program.
In the past, we’d often see players down on the depth chart making a move later in their careers in hopes of finding playing time. Now, anything goes, and no one is safe!
Alabama, despite coming off a College Football Playoff appearance, is experiencing this following Nick Saban’s retirement. Texas A&M saw the same scenario play out after Jimbo Fisher’s firing.
Sanders believes that coaching changes should be the only consideration in transfer portal decisions.
“What I think it should be, it should always be if your coach leaves, you can leave,” he said. “If your coach leaves you can leave. Other than that, we’ve got to have some more stick-to-itiveness, because now, this is what you’re dealing with.”
But coaching changes aren’t the only thing impacting players’ decisions.
Money, in many cases, has a way of swaying the minds of potential departures.
Look to the SEC, where first-team all-conference wideout Juice Wells opted to move onto Ole Miss despite South Carolina seeing no turnover at head coach.
The Rebels were on the other end of that conundrum when it saw leading rusher Quinshon Judkins bail for Ohio State earlier this offseason. Instead of being the feature back in Oxford, he’ll share the backfield with TreVeyon Henderson in Columbus.
There are many more instances around college football, some of which Coach Prime has capitalized on, which is why some might call his opinion hypocritical.
But he actually says that the current rules have impacted the way he recruits the high school level, making him shy away from taking too many youngsters.
“We’re not adding freshmen, unless they are mature or impactful,” he said. “You grab a high school kid… and he doesn’t play like he wants to play, then he goes back through the spring again… and he’s not first-team or whatever — you might as well wave to him, because he’s going to jump in the portal.”
For that reason, he’s looked to the portal to grab both experience and immediate contribution as opposed to hoping a young player develops and sticks around.
“Our formula is, unless they’re really mature or they can flat out ball, I get them out of the portal… He sees this as a second chance.”
Deion Sanders isn’t the only coach that’s expressed criticism of the current transfer portal and NIL setups in college football. We’ll see if the NCAA does anything to put restrictions on the current rules.