At SoCon Media Day, HERO Sports asked head coaches about the transfer portal.
We didn’t specifically ask about the pros and cons of the portal, or about the challenges of navigating the portal era. Instead, we asked about misconceptions and what the casual fan or media member may not realize about the transfer portal.
Here is what they said.
Some transfers can make money (NIL), but many lose money (scholarships)
“What a casual fan probably doesn’t know is a lot of kids don’t get picked back up,” Wofford’s Shawn Watson said. “There are a lot of kids that give up scholarships, thinking that’s the end all of end alls and they’re going to get something out of it. But they end up with nothing. And they end up in a junior college or maybe walking on somewhere.”
Mercer head coach Mike Jacobs echoed that statement.
“You hear way more about the random success story than you do about the guys that are left in purgatory or that don’t get to where they want to go,” Jacobs said. “They leave with the dream of going up and the NIL riches. And the reality is, it’s like 65% of them either end up staying at the same level or going down a level or not playing anymore. And I think the travesty in all of this is we’ve lost sight of trying to graduate guys. I’m all for players having choices. I’m all for it. But I think those are some of the things that we’ve lost. And what you don’t hear enough about is that there’s a bunch of guys that don’t find a home, or they don’t find what they were looking for and they end up settling for something that was worse than their original situation.”
Another misconception, according to Chattanooga head coach Rusty Wright, is a lot of the transfers they take in are walk-ons, even if they’re coming from the FBS level.
This offseason, the Mocs landed six FCS transfers and 10 FBS transfers.
“We get a lot more walk-ons in the transfer portal than we take scholarship kids, honestly,” Wright said. “And I think a lot of it is location. A lot of it is opportunities. We have a lot more walk-ons from places than what people may think. And I think that’s the misconception. I think when somebody looks at your roster and they go, ‘Oh my gosh, they have 45 transfers.’ Yeah, not really, you know, and that’s the difference.”
The portal can be beneficial as better high school recruits are available for FCS schools to sign
A sentiment we’ve heard from multiple FCS coaches across the country is the level of high school talent coming into the FCS has never been better. Guys that FCS schools couldn’t land before are now coming to the subdivision because the FBS is spending fewer scholarships on high school recruits.
“The portal is a little crazy, but a lot of people don’t use the portal as much as some. Some really benefit from it,” Western Carolina head coach Kerwin Bell said. “People like us, we’ve benefited because of the portal in that instead of taking 20 high school kids, they only take 10, and they get 10 from the portal. Now that leaves a lot of high school kids out there. We found that that’s our niche. I think everywhere you go as a head football coach, you can’t do things the same way. Everywhere you go, you have to find your niche. You have to find your strong points. And for us, let’s go get high school kids down in Florida and Georgia. Let’s go get those young kids. Now, it’s taking a while to develop because they’re young. But that’s how I want to build a program, is develop kids, develop them in the weight room, get them bigger and stronger. Let them be in your program for 2, 3, 4 years, and now you got a chance to go win some big games.”
Some coaches actually like it
“Money talks,” East Tennessee State’s Tre Lamb said. “You can talk about loyalty all you want, but every single person on the planet, if they were offered 300 times their salary, is going to go take it. So money talks, No. 1. I think No. 2 is I like the transfer portal. It’s a misconception that coaches hate it, and it’s a tool for players. Hell, we transfer. I just transferred from Gardner-Webb to ETSU. Why can’t a player better his opportunity? I don’t hold it against him. He’s got to do what’s best for him and his family.”
Lamb was hired as ETSU’s head coach after guiding Gardner-Webb to the 2022 and 2023 FCS playoffs. He took more than 20 Gardner-Webb players with him to ETSU.
Players following their head coach to a new team has become common.
More than 10 Austin Peay players followed Scotty Walden to UTEP this offseason. Last year, around 10 Jackson State players followed Deion Sanders to Colorado, and about 10 UIW players followed GJ Kinne to Texas State.
“I also think coaches can use it to hold their current players accountable,” Lamb added. “‘Hey, you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing. We don’t think you’re getting it done on or off the field. There’s another guy in the portal that I can get that can replace you.’ So I think it goes both ways. I think coaches are starting to like it. I like it. Now, I’ve only coached in the transfer portal era. In 2020, I got my first head coaching job at 30 years old, and I don’t know any other way. So I use it as a tool. I think our players walk around a little nervous because they’re like, ‘If I mess this up, if I don’t go to class, coach is probably going to replace me with a better player that goes to class.’ So I think that’s the two misconceptions. Money actually does talk. A lot of this money is real. And the second thing is coaches don’t like it. I like it. I really do like it. I enjoy it. I love recruiting transfers. They’re low maintenance. They come in, you give them a pair of shorts and a shirt, and they’re happy. Especially the ones coming from D2 or smaller FCS programs.”
Players have always left, the portal has just made the process easier
“People always talk about the portal. But the portal is simply a mechanism to transfer,” Furman’s Clay Hendrix said. “Not too many years ago, they’d get released, and I’d have to be contacted. I’d have to sign off on the release. I don’t have to be contacted about anything now. So it’s not so much the portal. To me, the biggest problem is the unlimited number to transfer. The portal really provides freedom to just go whenever, however many times.”
While leaving a team has become an easier and more transparent process for players, getting transfers to come in after they commit can be a challenge for coaches.
“Well, first of all, the portal can be very helpful,” Samford’s Chris Hatcher said. “But it also can hurt you because your players can leave. And I think the biggest thing that most of the fans don’t know is that a transfer is not bound to you until he sets foot on your campus for a practice, a meeting, or the first day of class. So the hardest thing to navigate now is you sign players throughout the course of a spring season, and then all of a sudden, when you get ready to come report to football camp, they’ve gone and found something that they consider a little bigger and better. And then you’re sitting there holding the bag because you quit recruiting that position. So not having the ability to lock a transfer down contractually when they verbally commit to you is probably the biggest obstacle or hurdle that we go through every year.”
The military schools have a unique perspective
Military schools like VMI and The Citadel rarely use the portal.
So for coaches like VMI’s Danny Rocco, it isn’t as much of a worry. However, as a former head coach at Delaware, Richmond, and Liberty, Rocco questioned how alums might view football rosters year after year with so much turnover. That also gives VMI fans a unique sense of pride when supporting their football team.
“We don’t use the portal at VMI,” Rocco said. “But here’s something, though, that’s really worth thinking about. So you’re a college fan and alumni. I’ll just use Notre Dame. So you’re a Notre Dame alum. You’re a Notre Dame fan. You grew up and your whole life you were a fan, your grandfather was, your great grandfather was. Everybody loves Notre Dame. You went to school there in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s, whatever, right? You’re a proud alumni of Notre Dame. So you go back to a football game. Do you realize how many players are on that field that are not graduating from your school? Do you realize how many players are on that field that have already graduated from another school? So why are you rooting? It’s the logo.”
“Okay, so let me tell you about VMI,” he continued. “You’re an alumni of VMI. You graduated in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s, right? You come back to a game, and what do you see? You see players on the field that are going through the exact same experience that you experienced 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. That’s tradition. And to me, that’s very valuable. It’s very meaningful. And that’s what’s getting lost in the portal. That’s what we’re losing, this sense of school pride. How can I root against you one year, then root for you the next year? Right? So I think that is, I wouldn’t say an unexpected consequence, but that’s a consequence of the portal that I do think is very overlooked. And it’s certainly here to stay, but I do think our situation is very unique because of the realities at VMI.”
