Imagine the NCAA’s bustling transfer portal with a clever identifying presentation. Such as:
Want to play in the Big House or at Pauley Pavilion? Tired of being an Aggie or a Sun Devil? Eager to get a share of the NIL goodies at Ohio State and Texas? Contact your campus compliance officer today. In little more than 48 hours, you could be driving a new car, dreaming of the Rose Bowl or the Final Four.
The transfer portal is perceived as the college sports highway to happiness.
This is the express route taken by defensive lineman Troy Everett of Appalachian State last weekend:
According to the Athletic, Everett posted on Twitter at 10:15 a.m. Saturday that he was going to transfer. At 11:37 a.m., the NCAA officially entered his name and contact information into the transfer portal, available to all college football teams. A coach from Virginia Tech called Everett a minute later. A minute! In a few hours, he had been offered scholarships by Oklahoma, Illinois, Virginia Tech, Maryland and Missouri.
Colorado’s Deion Sanders offered Everett a chance to be a Buffalo, not quite a surprise since CU has already accepted 27 transfers and watched 22 Buffaloes leave town.
All of this for a lineman from little ’ol Appalachian State.
By Tuesday evening, the Pac-12 had welcomed 141 transfers while 204 exited through the portal. Since mid-December, Jedd Fisch’s Arizona team had eight football players transfer to Tucson; 22 Wildcats left town.
The transfer portal reminds me of those ever-frequent Capital One TV commercials in which Derek Jeter is chosen to pinch-hit for a rec league baseball team, and Charles Barkley is selected over several undersized teenagers in a pickup basketball game.
Capital One calls it “the easiest decision you can ever make.’’
Quarterback Jayden de Laura, right, wasn't in the transfer portal for very long before UA coach Jedd Fisch made contact.
The NCAA should refer to the transfer portal as the “easiest process you can ever take.’’
For 40 years, the Pac-12 treated transferring as if it were a sinister business. If a football player from Washington wanted to transfer to ASU or another conference school, he would be required to sit out two seasons.
Now it takes 48 hours, and you are eligible to play at any school you wish. Arizona deploys transfers from UCLA, Cal, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Utah.
According to the NCAA, athletes enter the portal by informing their current school’s compliance office of their desire to transfer. The school then has two business days to enter the athlete’s name into the database. Once an athlete’s name is posted, anything goes. Speed often prevails.
When Washington State quarterback Jayden de Laura entered the transfer portal in January 2022, Arizona coaches phoned in what de Laura said was “maybe 5 or 10 minutes’’ of de Laura’s name being posted in the transfer portal.
De Laura chose to transfer to Arizona three days later, possibly the No. 1 transaction in Arizona’s football program since QB Nick Foles transferred from Michigan State in 2007, after which he was forced by NCAA’s protect-the-school-first laws to sit out the 2008 season.
Now the players have long overdue freedom.
Example 1-A: After Utah State was eliminated from the NCAA men’s basketball tournament last month, Aggie coach Ryan Odum left town and accepted the coaching job at VCU.
During his 45-minute monologue, while being introduced as VCU’s new coach, Odum didn’t say a word about Utah State’s remarkable 26-9 season. See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya, right?
A few days later, Utah State’s top player, point guard Steven Ashworth composed a tweet announcing his decision to enter the transfer portal. In it, he wrote:
“Experiencing three coaching changes since high school has helped me realize it’s time to explore all options for myself, to ultimately find the best fit for my wife and I.’’
I privately hoped Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd would pursue Ashworth, who made 3.17 3-pointers per game and shot 43.4% from deep. Alas, Lloyd wasn’t interested; he is pursuing another highly-coveted point guard, Creighton’s Ryan Nembhard.
Ashworth was quickly offered a scholarship to replace Nembhard at Creighton, as well as offers to play at Washington — “They had the best NIL offers,’’ Ashworth told Utah reporters — Gonzaga and BYU.
The 23-year-old Eagle Scout from Alpine, Utah, who interrupted his college days by serving a two-year Mormon mission in Indiana, is now a Creighton Blue Jay. If he’s not as good as Nembhard, it’s close.
It was a good trade for Creighton, which is what the transfer portal often becomes. The loser is Utah State, a mid-major that can’t hope to replace a talent like Ashworth, who USU fans loved called “Spashworth.’’
Jemarl Baker Jr., center, was at Arizona for two years during his college career but is now headed to New Mexico, his fourth school.
Now he’ll do his splashing in Nebraska.
At ASU, basketball coach Bobby Hurley annually seems to trade dime-a-dozen shooting guards averaging 11.7 points per game for shooting guards averaging 11.7 points per game.
It sometimes gets confusing. A year ago, ASU welcomed Auburn shooting guard Devan Cambridge. After a middlin’ year for the Sun Devils, averaging 9.7 points, Cambridge again entered the transfer portal last month. Most recruiting sites predict that Cambridge will return to play for Auburn again.
If so, the transfer portal is getting ridiculous.
It’s doubtful anyone overseeing the transfer portal expected it to get so fast and furious, so chaotic and confusing.
Former Arizona guard Jemarl Baker, who turns 25 in June, last week announced he will transfer to New Mexico. This will be Baker’s fourth school, a vagabond-type journey that has taken him from Kentucky to Arizona to Fresno State and now New Mexico.
That’s a bit much, isn’t it?
If a coach can move, a player should be able to move without restrictions — but just once. Let’s call it the Jemarl Baker Rule and put some sense to what is becoming transfer portal nonsense.
According to Under Armour, Stephen Curry will only wear shoes that squeak when he’s on the court.
