SALT LAKE CITY — Amid a bevy of concern from several factions, the virtual non-stop shuffling of college football and basketball rosters continues to hover over each sport.
For some, the transfer portal has infused downtrodden teams badly needing talent upgrades. Even if newcomers don’t translate into success, at least they provide offseason hope.
For others, the constant flux has negatively impacted lifelong connections with both sports. They join the chorus of coaches practically pleading for guardrails to stop the madness.
BYU and Utah football both recently lost starters seemingly entrenched in their respective roles. In most cases, money in the form of NIL is the primary reason for the late departures.
Individual and team success don’t account for much anymore, especially for players looking to move up a level. Nowhere was this more prevalent than with Utah Valley basketball, which won the Western Athletic conference regular-season championship and finished 25-9.
As expected, the best talent left for more prestigious conferences and more money. In reverse, dissatisfied players in those conferences often transfer down in search of more playing time.
“I’d say most teams have seven to eight guys that are in the portal, whether they’re looking to go high or looking to go low,” Utah Valley basketball coach Todd Phillips said last month in an interview with The Zone. “A lot of guys now just want to look and see what’s out there and they feel like they’re missing something.”
To deal with it, Phillips uses the transfer portal as a recruiting advantage. His pitch is to play well at Utah Valley and then move up to a higher program, which is exactly the case for several players off this past season’s roster.
WAC defensive player of the year Carter Welling, who began his college career at UC Irvine, spent one season at Utah Valley and transferred to Clemson. Starting out at BYU, Tanner Toolson played the past two seasons at Utah Valley before going to TCU. Dominick Nelson parlayed one season at Utah Valley into a scholarship from Iowa State.
-“You know where it’s at when they came in,” Phillips said. “We talked about these things. We’re pretty honest and open about where they’re at. Obviously, success, especially with big guys, is through the roof. Those guys are getting paid half a million to a million dollars after having success at our place, and it’s continuing with Carter Welling.
“We sell that when they come in, but does it mean we’re sad when they leave — absolutely, 100%. We understand where it’s at.”
Football and basketball have specific dates during which players can enter the respective transfer portals, in essence becoming free agents with the freedom to gain immediate eligibility for a new team. Tampering is a buzz word nowadays, with accusations of intermediaries contacting players long before the portals open.
“We’ve created a bad system,” longtime Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo said during a press conference last month.
“The biggest concern is that these guys have had people in their ears all year long,” Izzo said. “The portal is open 24/7, 365 days a year. Let’s make the portal a real opening, let’s make it a big deal, and we know that’s the day you can start talking to kids.”
Timing for the basketball portal, which was open March 24 through April 22, at least makes sense. Football has two transfer windows — Dec. 9-28 and April 16-25 — which means during the first portal period, coaches with teams in the postseason juggle game preparation with recruiting at the same time.
The spring portal allows players to transfer after the 15 spring practices, often forcing coaches to scramble in finding replacements. Athletes must enter the portal during the specific dates but can choose a new destination at any time. Graduates have no transfer restrictions.
“If we’re going to do anything to help the players and the student-athletes and help the programs, we’ve got to look at this model and see where we can improve it and do it in a way where there’s some teeth involved,” Texas coach and former BYU quarterback Steve Sarkisian told reporters. “Because if not, there’s just going to be another lawsuit and the whole thing’s going to fall apart and we’re going to go back to square one.”
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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