Getty Image
The transfer portal is dead. Long live the transfer portal.
Well, maybe not technically dead. But the NCAA made a shocking admission on Friday night after Wisconsin safety Xavier Lucas officially completed his transfer from the Badgers to the Miami Hurricanes. The caveat? Lucas never actually officially entered the transfer portal after being barred from doing so by the Badgers.
Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports now reports that the NCAA has informed him that it cannot actually prevent students from transferring and becoming eligible immediately.
“NCAA rules do not prevent a student-athlete from unenrolling from an institution, enrolling at a new institution and competing immediately,” a statement to Dellenger read.
Lucas withdrew from classes at Wisconsin and enrolled academically at Miami. He did not formally sign with Miami’s football program, which allows him to work around the NCAA transfer rules. Lucas is alleged to have signed a two-year NIL contract with Wisconsin, but sought a way out of the contract when seeking a transfer to the Hurricanes.
“Let’s clear something up. Xavier Lucas owes Wisconsin NOTHING. The school is holding him hostage,” Heitner wrote earlier this week. “It’s disgusting, illegal, and will be crushing for recruiting. Wisconsin can easily do the right thing and place him in the transfer portal. The silence on their end is deafening.”
Interestingly enough, Heitner and Lucas took the case to court. But now it appears they found a work around that could be resovled without court proceedings. In doing so, however, they appear to have rendered the transfer portal more or less irrelevant. Players can simply unenroll from one school and re-enroll at another before later joining an athletic program at their new school.
It opens up a dangerous precedent that could see athletes transfer from one to school to another within a season and remain eligible for the new school. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen. But it appears the NCAA has no power to stop it.