By John Culbertson (@johnculb3) – Reporter
Now that a full year of college sports has passed since the NCAA made some big changes. The “one-time transfer” rule has had time to affect every Division I campus across the nation.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the rule change, essentially in April 2021, the NCAA made changes to the rules regarding player eligibility after transferring to a new program.
In the previous institution, an athlete would have to sit out a full year of play as a “penalty” for transferring.
In the new rule set, any player can transfer to a new program and be immediately eligible to compete. This change also removed the need for permission from your coach to transfer, giving the players the full power to leave their current situations and be allowed to play immediately if their hearts desired.
The reception of this rule change has certainly been the cause for many debates in the world of college sports.
“Initially, I thought it was good,” said football head coach Brent Brennan.
“There are circumstances where a player is in a bad situation…I think somewhere in between there are guys not getting anything, and they’ve forfeited a unique and special college football experience or their academic potential and opportunity and in that way I think it’s a little bit sad.”
Brennan touched upon an unfortunate truth of the new transfer portal situation. As some players leave their programs in search of something different, they are not guaranteed any offers. Players can get stuck in the transfer portal and even if they decide to go back to their old program, the team has no obligation to re-sign the player or offer them any portion of their scholarship back.
It’s easy to be blinded by the idea that the grass could be greener. As athletes look to better their situation, sometimes they can overlook factors like their education. Without proper research, unintended academic consequences can affect a player’s education when transferring.
“When you transfer to a different state you can lose some credits, and it wasn’t allowing me to stay under the same major because my GPA fell from some credits being dropped,” said junior center Ibrahima Diallo.
“I was taking 15 credits my freshman year and then 12 credits my sophomore year. I feel like it was a loss and I was doing it for nothing. If i did not transfer i was gonna graduate my third year…that impacted me because I didn’t want to change my major to be honest. I had to in order to stay eligible and get accepted into the school.”
In this era of player empowerment in NCAA sports, the teams also face their own struggles. The recruiting process has become a vastly different landscape as some focus shifts away from highschool and junior college players to transfer prospects. The NCAA also gave players an extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic which only increased the pool of potential players to scout.
“People that were in college two years ago got their covid year back, so it’s like we just paused time,” said men’s basketball head coach Tim Miles.
“That’s not just one year. That’s four different classes, so you end up with this huge pool in year one, and then it gets a little smaller and smaller, but it takes four years. That’s gonna really cause difficulty for junior college transfers, high school and prep school kids to get the recruitment that they’ve had in the past.”
Ultimately, the landscape of the recruiting process changed dramatically for Division I sports. Not only was there an increased focus on the transfer portal, but teams now had the added pressure of convincing their players to stick around rather than test the transfer waters.
Some men get lost at sea attracted by the white whale because the truth of the matter is that the rule changes may give prestigious organizations an even bigger edge.
Not long after the transfer eligibility rule changes, the NCAA introduced changes that allowed players to profit off their name, image and likeness. Previously any attempt to do so would forfeit their eligibility to play. Unfortunately, this has led to some supposed “back-alley” deals where people have convinced players to join certain schools on the promise of sponsorships or other monetary benefits.
“I think when you look at these NIL collectives, groups of people are putting money together to attract players to their program,” said Miles
“They can pay the guy in money or in cars, and I think that those teams are bigger collectives. You’re gonna see a smaller percentage of teams that have that, but those are going to be the top teams over and over because, quite frankly, they have an unlimited salary cap.”
This is something that is currently being looked at by the NCAA in hopes of regulating the process and not allowing this issue to take place. Changes could come as early as this summer to stop any potential loopholes in the process.
Whether it’s NIL or the one-time transfer rule change, modifications are sure to come in the following years as the NCAA hopes to fine tune everything.
“I think there will be some modifications, likely just in the windows of when it can happen,” said coach Brennan. “I think building some windows when players can enter the portal will make the process a little cleaner and easier to navigate.”
These rules may look quite different in ten years as changes and modifications occur. It will be hard to predict if the overall outcome will be positive or negative until we allow more years to go by and everyone adjusts to the changes.