Record Number of Players Hit the Portal

According to the On3 transfer portal tracker, players from all over the country dove into the portal, with over 1500 athletes exploring new opportunities. College football players have until December 28th to put their names in, and will have until mid-January to decide if they want to remain at their current school or accept an offer to transfer.

The short window of opportunity overlapping with the BCS bowl season is already causing headaches. Duke QB Maalik Murphy has opted to enter the portal, leaving the Blue Devils as they prepare for their Gator Bowl appearance against Ole Miss.

The transfer window is a compressed version of NFL free agency. Players are forced to make life-changing decisions in a short amount of time that impact multiple programs. One can hope these players have the right advice and support to make good decisions. If you take a step back, now players are potentially dealing with academic finals, preparing for bowl games, and deciding if they should change schools. This doesn’t sound like the recipe for great decisions.

New Roster Limits Will Hurt Walk-on Athletes

A recent post from ESPN’s Dan Murphy and Michael Rothstein shows the negative impact the House settlement will have on D1 opportunities across multiple sports.

The settlement will reduce the maximum roster size for 19 of 43 sports. It does increase the roster limits for some sports, but schools are not required to increase the number of roster spots. Football, baseball, and women’s soccer would be impacted the most, with the NCAA expecting the three sports combined will need to shed over 1,000 athletes.

This is partially a by-product of House allowing schools to offer financial support to all athletes. Setting strict limits on roster spots is meant to prevent rich programs from hoarding talent. There are still a lot of questions about exactly how the roster limits will be defined if and when the settlement receives final approval. Regardless, as we move through the most active transfer window so far, it is reasonable to assume that many of the roster spots will be taken up by players who can have an immediate impact, so the chances of finding a D1 walk-on opportunity will be very low.

High school athletes will need to adjust their expectations going into their freshman year. It might be smarter to start at an FCS, D2, or D3 program. That said, the competition for spots in lower divisions will increase as players from D1 schools that lost their roster spots look to find a home.

College Football Goes Pro: Belichick to UNC

More than a few people were scratching their heads and wondering why Bill Belichick would be interested in coaching at UNC. In reality, it makes perfect sense. College football is now a professional sport. When the House agreement gets final approval, D1 schools will look more like an NFL franchise, with a salary cap, formulas to calculate the value of players at different positions, and a financial model designed to maximize income for the school and athletic department.

A lot of pundits have joked about Bill on the recruiting couch talking to players and their families. That’s just muscle memory of when coaches had to show players the value they would get after they left their school. They would talk about the value of their degree or the number of players going to the NFL. Now it’s different. Players will be focused on two things: NIL Income and the NFL.

Belichick has made it clear that he wants to build a program to prepare players for the next level, so he has at least one of the two covered. As for NIL deals, these P4 schools have teams of people managing deals. I know his track record as a GM in New England was pretty suspect, but he understands how to build a team based on a payroll better than almost any other D1 coach.

I don’t know how well that will line up with donors who want to win ACC championships, but I know I can’t wait for the first post-game press conference.