College sports already adapting to new NCAA transfer rules
Associated PressAs spring practice winds down, Arkansas coach Sam Pittman sees some potential holes in his roster. “Let’s be honest, over the last two years everybody knew all the transfer policies and the requirement to get immediate eligibility and everybody was saying whatever they had to say to become eligible.” Franklin was referring to a tweak to the NCAA’s waiver policy made a few years back that seemed to make it easier for transferring athletes to gain immediate eligibility. “There’s over 2,000 kids that went into the football transfer portal,” North Carolina coach Mack Brown said. “The last update that I got was that only 37% had a place to go.” Combine the number of transfers with the NCAA’s decision to give athletes in all sports a free year of eligibility because of the pandemic and there is little doubt that there will be more scholarship-worthy major college football players than available scholarships over the next few seasons. “A lot of people might take one of our second team players at the FCS level or a Group Five that would have recruited one of those ‘22 kids, and now he’d rather have a transfer that’s older and proven than a high school kid,” Brown said.