Watch this little twitter video…
As much as I hate to admit it, the current state of NIL and Portal hurts Arkansas. Yes we have had some success but we have had some losses too. Right now the successes outweigh the losses, but…
Unless this is regulated someway, this is going to get so beyond control it will be worse than the “wild west”… worse. Now when you know you have needs on your team, you can cherry pick developed or semi developed talent from existing teams. It makes it really convenient if you have actually played against the team, you get to see your prospect in action. No longer are you restricted on sifting through HS talent and hoping it can succeed on the college level. You can go grab an existing college player through the portal with an NLI enticement. You get your player with the added bonus of hurting a team you might be playing in the future.
Now there has always been a pecking order in College Football. The names change over time but its hard to move up on the ladder, much easier to fall down it. You have the few what I call Power Elites. They are playing in the New Years Day bowls most years or the playoff. Frequent visitors to their conference Championship games. You know the teams. Then you have your middle to low level P5 teams that may on rare occasions upset an apple cart from time to time but not a real threat of crashing the Big Boy Party. Then the G5… then the rest.
Like it or not, Arkansas is in the middle to low level of the P5. We just are, it sux, but we are what our record over the past decade shows. Those be facts.
So we are prime targets to get players cherry picked by the people that can afford to take them against our will. You can’t tell me when we lose two starting players and then on the next day they enter the portal they are both signing deals with LSU. Tampering in my opine. Now the rumors of people that contacted KJ and Catalon.
This is going to destroy college football unless it is regulated somehow. The NFL made a salary cap and negotiated with the players association, but I’m not sure anything like that is feasible on the college level. I think serious changes need to be made with the transfer portal, its wide open approach has been the catalyst for the purchasing / poaching of players.
I also know many will say well, the coach can leave anytime he wants so why shouldn’t the players be able to. Ahh… flaw there is that the coach is generally under a contract which has in most cases a hefty buy-out or penalty for leaving early. Not so on the players. Maybe we should sign them to contracts where there are consequences if they portal out like there are for a coach.