In 2018, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) introduced something called the “Transfer portal,” and ever since, college football hasn’t been the same. 

The transfer portal might have dropped in 2018, but new regulations released in 2021 that allowed student-athletes to change schools without having to sit out a year after the transfer caused the portal to become a bit more popular. 

Now with the transfer portal in full swing, college has changed. Students have started going to college only with sports in mind and academics out of their mind, which is problematic. You go to college to get a good degree in a job that you want to do that you know will make you good money. Going to college just for sports doesn’t accomplish that.

Football is a team sport, which is what makes football, football. But with the portal, athletes can just leave their team and try to join a better performing team. Players are allowed to just move from school to school just because they think they will win a better championship there. Gone are the days where athletes remain loyal to a school because that’s where their hearts belong.

The portal was intended for players to be able to tell their coach that they plan to leave. This was planned to help players publicly announce they are leaving from a certain school. When you enter the portal, you notify every other NCAA program that you are available to be recruited.

From this, coaches can pick and choose what players they want on their team. This lets players at bigger schools secure playing time at smaller ones, and it allows players who have “outplayed” their scholarship at smaller schools to look for better deals. 

Ultimately, this was made for players to do what was best for their own future and their life plans.

Unfortunately, the portal is ruining teams for coaches, and it is making it difficult to keep players. Now, all coaches have to recruit players with the portal in the front of their mind. They have to find special players who are not only amazing at the sport, but ones they know they can keep and players who will stay away from the portal. 

Going into the portal never guarantees a better spot, and players don’t understand that. Very rarely do players get better deals, and most of the time, their new deals are worse. Also, it’s very common for players to get no other deals. These athletes are playing a dangerous game with their careers.

Players might think that as long as they are still playing at a school, that they can just keep on waiting for deals, but it’s not the case. As soon as players enter the portal, coaches are now allowed to cut their scholarships. Players still have a place to play but no more scholarship, so they need to find a good deal fast! And like I said before, when you are in the portal, there is no guarantee that you leave it with a better deal.

Here lies the problem with the portal: while you are in it, you lose your current scholarship, and you aren’t guaranteed a better one. If you don’t get a better deal, then you just left a good deal for a bad one, and there is no guarantee that you will get another one at all. As long as you’re in the portal, you don’t have a scholarship and you have to start paying a lot of money. This is what players don’t understand. The portal has changed the game for the worse.