facook
Footballguy
For 40% it is disastrous.This transfer portal thing might be the dumbest thing ever invented.
Not for the players.
"Disastrous" may be hyperbole. I'm sure many of these kids don't find a scholarship to sit on the bench to be THAT life alteringly amazing that they're not willing to risk it to get a chance to show themselves and make it to the league.
Heck, two of the recent #1 overall draft picks could have just faded off into obscurity as college backups with a sports management scholarship without a transfer.
Maybe to you. 40% of kids who make the decision to transfer give up a full ride at a 4 year (or 5, or 6) university and don't get that same deal at another school as a result. So I would expect the vast majority of those kids either a) complete their degree on their own dime and as a result graduate or leave school with a lot of debt or b) don't complete their degree. To me that is a disastrous transaction, as I actually assume a lot of these young athletes want an education. Call my Pollyanna.![]()
I spent 4 years working with college football/hoops players every day. A lot fewer of these guys care about their sports management degree than you think.
I just don't think most of these guys see a free ride for a useless degree they were pushed into while being also pushed to spend the majority of their time away from academics (beyond just making grades good enough to stay on the team) to be nearly the life advantage you're implying.
But we don't really have to speculate, because if they DID consider it a disaster then they wouldn't keep entering the transfer portal. But they continue to do so, knowing full well that they could be giving up their free scooter in exchange for going for it and trying to make a career out of football. It's obviously a modest enough level of importance that they're willing to risk it because they continue to go to the transfer portal. It's not like entries have fallen off the cliff since that data came out.
Fair enough. My viewpoint would be they either don't know the data (I certainly didn't till I looked it up, not like it's being advertised by CFB/NCAA) or if they do they of course think it won't be them left high and dry. And 40% of them are wrong - or at least were in that two year sample.
I'll take at face value your experience and I believe what you observed, but I think the truth may be in the middle of our opinions. It would be interesting to hear from players who entered the portal and regretted it, and from players who entered it and from the outside seemingly were worse off but were happy they gave it a shot.
