Ohio State football: Transfer portal is officially free agency

Since the creation of NIL, the transfer portal has been looked at as free agency. Whoever pays the most money to a recruit wins his services. The Ohio State football team is finding that out now as they try to find a quarterback. But with rules limiting how many times a team could transfer, it wasn't true free agency.

Well, those rules no longer exist. Thanks to the state of Ohio and a lawsuit against the NCAA, there is now a temporary restraining order against enforcing any sort of punishment for a multiple-time transfer. That means anyone can leave for any reason.

We have now reached free agency in college athletics. No one has any incentive to stay anywhere at this point. Kids are going to bum-rush the portal to go find somewhere that will either give them more playing time, money, or both. I don't think this is necessarily a good thing.

I'm all for kids doing what they think is best for them. But sometimes what they think is best for them isn't actually best. In 2021, just 54% of kids found a new school. That's barely half! What happens if someone gets into the portal and they can't find a school that wants them?

What happens in some cases is they can't afford to keep going with their schooling. If no school wants them, then they don't get any NIL deals or a scholarship to help keep their education going. So not only do they not make the pros, but they don't get a degree.

This is obviously the worst-case scenario. For a big-time program like the Ohio State football program, the Buckeyes could be at an advantage because of how much money they can offer kids they really want. It could turn out to be a benefit for them.

We'll see how the new era of the transfer portal goes. I can see a lot of kids being benefitted and a lot of kids getting hurt by it.