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Understanding the transfer portal (at least somewhat)

717s7e

Well-known member
The following newspaper article discusses the NCAA’s relatively new transfer portal. The transfer portal doesn’t impact Griz football because dropdowns are eligible immediately. However, it does impact basketball. The article sheds at least some light on why some basketball transfers can be eligible immediately while others have to sit out for a year.

"Two years ago, Justin Fields was one of the top high school quarterbacks in the nation. He enrolled at Georgia but couldn’t supplant incumbent Jake Fromm. So after the 2018 season, he transferred to Ohio State.
That prompted Buckeyes backups Tate Martell and Matthew Baldwin to seek new schools. Martell decamped for the University of Miami, which then saw two of its own backups seek transfers. Baldwin, meanwhile, landed at TCU, where two players announced their own intent to transfer.
The quarterback merry-go-round in college football these days has created the impression that an age of free agency has dawned in the NCAA. In the past year, that notion has been fueled by the NCAA’s creation last summer of a “transfer portal,” a new mechanism intended to make it easier to switch schools by removing some of the red tape involved.
In the first off-season since the portal’s debut last fall, dozens of players have indeed transferred, especially quarterbacks. According to 247sports.com, 76 Division I passers—many of them former four- and five-star recruits—registered to transfer via the portal. This total is a significant uptick from the 36 quarterbacks that changed programs during the 2017-18 academic year.
But while many college athletes understood the portal as a means of moving freely between schools as their coaches so often do, that has not quite been the case.
Each of the 23 graduate transfer quarterbacks are eligible to play right away. But not all of the remaining 53 passers will be on the field this fall. Just as in the past, many of them must sit out a year before playing unless they obtain a special waiver from the NCAA. The NCAA, it turns out, granted fewer waivers this year than it did five seasons ago—and it’s tightening the waiver rules for the future. Some of the quarterbacks that entered the portal this off-season elected to remain with their original school.
And some players are stuck in the portal. According to 247sports.com, 425 players from Power 5 conferences had entered the transfer portal as of Aug. 8, when most teams had assembled for preseason training camp. Of those players, 135 didn’t have homes, including five quarterbacks, and it was unclear whether they would be playing football in 2019.
The upshot is that the transfer portal isn’t transforming college football as quickly as many expected. Those assertions of “free agency” are misleading, said Susan Peal of the NCAA. “It’s freedom to talk to other institutions.”
The portal, which went live on Oct. 15, 2018, eliminated the need for prospective transfers to obtain “permission to contact” from their current school before attempting to leave. The change meant that coaches could no longer block players from inquiring with certain schools. Athletes could also receive financial aid at their new school without first obtaining permission to transfer from their former coach.
That makes it easier for players frustrated with their choice of school to seek opportunity elsewhere.
“If the transfer portal has done one thing, it’s made it easier for players to understand what they have to do to be able to go look and see other places,” said Georgia head coach Kirby Smart during Southeastern Conference media days in July.
But if applying for a transfer via the portal is fairly simple, finding a way into another school’s lineup immediately isn’t. That’s because, when the NCAA created the portal last year, it did not change its bylaws that govern transfer eligibility.
Those rules state that transfers in revenue-generating sports—football, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s ice hockey and baseball—are required to sit out for one season to observe an “academic year of residence” at their new university. (So-called graduate transfers—players like former Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts, who completed his degree before transferring to Oklahoma--don’t need to seek this kind of waiver.)
“The theory behind that is to be acclimated to your new academic environment,” said Tim Nevius, former NCAA investigator turned college athlete rights advocate. “It’s bull— to put it bluntly. It’s about competitive and economic interests and that’s it.”
It is possible for football players, among other athletes, to get around the year of bench warming if their new school files a legislative relief waiver on their behalf. If the NCAA Academic and Membership Affairs department agrees that an athlete’s reason for transferring fits into one of about 11 prescribed “unique and mitigating circumstances,” they’re given the green light to play immediately. Those circumstances include family hardship, discontinued academic program or sport, military service, athlete injury or illness and egregious behavior at the previous institution, like a coach running off a player.
If the NCAA denies the waiver, athletes can appeal their case to the Committee for Legislative Relief, chaired by Lafayette College Deputy Director of Athletics Kaity McKittrick.
“The Committee does have flexibility to say, ‘OK, it may not meet a specific guideline but based on the totality of circumstances we would approve,’ ” said McKittrick of the seven-member panel. Because of the sensitive personal information contained in the cases, she said the NCAA cannot be fully transparent about its decision-making process.
The waiver process isn’t new, but it gained increased visibility this winter when dozens of quarterbacks, like Fields, Martell and Baldwin, retained lawyers to win the ability to play right away.
“There could be a mistaken assumption that if you hire an attorney, you’re going to get immediate eligibility,” said Nevius. “There’s a lot of nuance related to approving what the NCAA decides is a successful waiver.”
Of the 30 Football Bowl Subdivision players to apply for a waiver during the 2018-19 academic year, only 19 were successful. That’s a significant dip from 2014-15, the last year in which transfer regulations most closely resembled those of today, when the NCAA granted 36 of 53 FBS waivers. And in July, the NCAA tightened its guidelines for family and medical hardship waivers, likely limiting the number of athletes who gain immediate eligibility in the future.
“You’ve got one body creating law and interpreting its law and everybody else is kind of scrambling to figure out how they’re going to interpret their own guidance,” said Travis Leach, a partner at DLA Piper who represented Martell once he transferred to Miami. “It’s very difficult to take on an engagement because we want to make sure we can provide a good result.”
The seeming slew of prominent quarterbacks with successful waiver cases became a source of ire for coaches this off-season.
Washington coach Chris Peterson, at Pac-12 media day, said some players have concluded that, when things get hard, it’s easier to “tap out” than work through the problems. “It’s usually not,” he said. The Huskies starting quarterback in 2019, Jacob Eason, sat out last season after transferring from Georgia in February 2018 when Fromm overtook him as the starter.
Alabama Coach Nick Saban, who lost several players to the transfer portal this spring and will face two SEC foes featuring transfer quarterbacks come fall, was similarly critical.
“Everybody’s expectation is, ‘I can transfer and get a waiver,’” said Saban at SEC media days. “I don’t think that’s a good thing.”"
 
"Those rules state that transfers in revenue-generating sports—football, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s ice hockey and baseball—are required to sit out for one season to observe an “academic year of residence” at their new university. (So-called graduate transfers—players like former Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts, who completed his degree before transferring to Oklahoma--don’t need to seek this kind of waiver."

I hate the transfer rule as it is now. I think it is total garbage to be able to play for 1 D1 school and go to another D1 school the next year without sitting a year UNLESS your school eliminates your sport and you have to transfer to continue playing your sport. It's being abused by the big schools and almost always for non-academic reasons.

One other minor point, I find it humorous that ice hockey is considered a "revenue-generating sport". I would guess that maybe 10 D1 programs actually MAKE money from hockey. There were 11 programs that averaged over 5000 fans/game last year and half of those are students who usually get in free.
 
I find it interesting that when we get Tony Miller as a transfer, he has to sit out a year. But when Washington State nabs him, he is eligible immediately???

And Karl Nicholas was immediately eligible at two other schools? What's with that?? I would love to know what sort of a hardship he came up with - he comes from an upper income family in Houston.

But, I am pleased that our transfer from Oregon State was eligible without sitting out a year.
 
I find it interesting that when we get Tony Miller as a transfer, he has to sit out a year. But when Washington State nabs him, he is eligible immediately???

And Karl Nicholas was immediately eligible at two other schools? What's with that?? I would love to know what sort of a hardship he came up with - he comes from an upper income family in Houston.

But, I am pleased that our transfer from Oregon State was eligible without sitting out a year.

Maybe we are requesting a waiver for our Utah transfer, who knows.
 
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