SMU coach Rhett Lashlee took a moment as he prepared his team for the College Football Playoff to address the ever-growing concern over the open transfer portal window.
His problem is not with players wanting to trade. Rather, Lashlee’s problem, one shared with other coaches, is the timing for those with teams still playing, whether in the 12-team playoffs like the Mustangs or in one of the many bowls in early January.
“I hate it for our players,” Lashlee said Tuesday. “I told them … I hate that you guys get a chance to play in the College Football Playoff, but you’re either forced to decide if I’m going to go into the portal or not. Or let’s call it what it is, people are bombarding our roster and trying to take people off our roster, and we’re trying to focus on the playoffs.”
Not to mention, it’s also time for final exams at SMU and many other schools.
Players wishing to transfer must enter the portal by December 28th, or must wait until April 16th. That time frame was approved in October — a the window reduced by 15 days following earlier complaints from trainers.
Lashlee understands that players want the ability to transfer for more playing time elsewhere, or an opportunity to capitalize on name, image and likeness. But he insists that even players don’t like the parameters in which they now have to make these decisions.
“We talk about creating a system that’s good for them, but we don’t have that. I mean, that’s part of your job as adults is to do what’s best for young people, not what they necessarily want. They don’t want this,” he said. “There’s no other sport at all that has free agency in the offseason. It’s sad, it’s terrible.”
SMU (11-2) plays at Penn State (11-2) on Saturday in a first-round CFP game. The primary backup quarterbacks for both teams can be found in the transfer portal.
Preston Stone, who was 13-3 as SMU’s starter before being replaced by Kevin Jennings in the fourth game this year, remains with the Mustangs in the playoffs. Penn State sophomore Beau Pribula will not be with the Nittany Lions.
“You hear the story of their backup quarterback saying I don’t have a choice. … It’s wrong, it’s unacceptable. It’s not OK,” Lashlee said. “He shouldn’t have to make that decision. Preston here does the same thing. Now he has chosen to stay with us and we work with him. But it’s still a juggling act for him.”
Penn State coach James Franklin said Monday after Pribula’s decision that the quarterback didn’t want to leave the program now, but he didn’t feel like he could wait until after their final game.
“The way the portal is, and the timing of it, when you play the position of quarterback and there’s only one spot and those spots fill up, it felt like he was put in a no-win situation,” Franklin said. “And I agree with him.”
Colorado coach Deion Sanders is no stranger to the portal game. He has engaged in it quite often with redoing the list. This season, the Buffaloes have more than 40 newcomers. That has helped them go from four wins in his Colorado debut — one that included a major roster upgrade — to a 9-3 team that will play BYU in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 28.
“The transfer portal should come as no surprise to you,” Sanders explained.
He really has it down to a science.
“You’re probably going to lose two guys you didn’t expect, and you’re probably going to get several guys you didn’t expect, but you’ve got to have a board,” Sanders said. “You have to do your studies. … I don’t think the portal has ever been a surprise to us.”
If a player wants to jump into the portal, so be it, with a caveat: “You’re not supposed to come here and train and eat and have a good Christmas with us, then leave right out of the game,” Sanders said. “I call it using any. You will not use us.”
Too many departures in the portal can certainly have negative effects on a program, such as e.g Marshall pulls out of a bowl game after too many of its players decided to switch in the aftermath of a coaching change.
Lashlee said the easiest solution would be to not open the transfer portal in December.
“We have to look long and hard at the schedule. Coaches have been saying this for the last three or four years with all these changes,” he said. “And what happens is we just make all these random changes because we don’t want to get sued, or we don’t want to do this, or we don’t want to do that, and we don’t think about the long-term effects it has on the young people whom we are to serve.”
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