Colorado athletic director Rick George and head football coach Karl Dorrell met with the media on Thursday to discuss a variety of areas impacting CU and the NCAA as a whole.
One topic that quickly arose was the NCAA Transfer Portal. The Buffaloes have watched 14 players enter the transfer portal since late September, including Brenden Rice, Christain Gonzalez, Mark Perry and other big names. While entering the transfer portal doesn’t mean those players can’t withdraw and return to CU, the uptick of transfer portal entrees around college football is a worrisome trend, at least for coaches and administrators.
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For Colorado, 14 entrees may seem like a large number, but it’s not far off from what other institutions are seeing; since the 2021-22 cycle began on Aug. 1, the average for an FBS program is 11. George believes that the “convergence” of new NIL liberties with student-athletes no longer being penalized for their initial transfer has led to the current situation.
“We’re seeing a lot of big names from a lot of different programs around the country in there,” George said. “I think these are two areas that we need more governance on either at the NCAA level or the conference level. It’s an area of concern, in my opinion, for our industry. It’s something that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.”
One possible solution that both George and Dorrell discussed was to shorten the window players have to enter the transfer portal.
“The NCAA window for these guys to enter is a tremendous window; it’s really all year long,” Dorrell said. “To me, that might be something we need to revisit.”
Dorrell continued to say that it’s difficult to plan for an upcoming season when players can enter the transfer portal during and even after spring camp. But until any drastic transfer portal updates occur, the second-year head coach said he must be ready for sudden changes and keep a “level head.”
As more and more players across the country enter the portal, these conversations will likely continue amongst college football higher-ups.
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