When Penn State backup quarterback Beau Pribula announced Sunday that the overlapping College Football Playoff and transfer portal timeline had forced him “into an impossible decision” — to leave the team — he escalated a hot-button issue that already had folks inside the coaching community exasperated.
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In his announcement, Pribula, who has accounted for nine touchdowns this season and was involved in plenty of packages designed for his running ability, pointed out that it had always been a dream to play for Penn State and that he had spoken at length with his family and coaches about his dilemma before deciding to enter the transfer portal and leave his team before the Playoff.
— Beau Pribula (@beauprib) December 16, 2024
At the crux of Pribula’s situation: This is the final week he can take official visits to meet with other programs, so trying to find his team for next year meant he’d have to miss practices and meetings leading up to the Nittany Lions’ Saturday game against SMU. His situation was further complicated because Penn State’s starting quarterback, Drew Allar, told coaches over the weekend that he plans on returning for the 2025 season, which meant Pribula likely would have to look elsewhere if he wanted to be a starter.
It didn’t take long for the fans and talking heads to weigh in. Everyone had a thought on a broken system desperately in need of a fix.
The dynamic for quarterbacks in the transfer portal is different than for any other position. Schools look to sign only one. It becomes a game of musical chairs, and Pribula knew the music was going to stop playing soon.
“We’ve got problems in college football,” Penn State coach James Franklin said Monday. “And I can give you my word: Beau Pribula did not want to leave our program and he did not want to leave our program until the end of the season. When you play the position of quarterback and there’s only one spot and those spots are filling up, he felt like he was put in a no-win situation, and I agree with him.”
At the heart of this issue is the NCAA’s broken college football calendar, which has been further shattered into jagged fragments now that the College Football Playoff has expanded to 12 teams and added more weeks to the season.
Asked @CoachTraylor about the transfer portal and today’s wild west of college football
He says agrees with what @PennStateFball coach James Franklin said yesterday about needing more structure and putting these kids in no win situations
Really interesting thoughts from Coach pic.twitter.com/dUWjVAIBUK
— Matt Roy (@MattRoy_TV) December 17, 2024
When the news broke Sunday, a group of a half-dozen player personnel directors who are in a robust group text knew that a subject they’re wrestling with was about to become front page news and get dragged into the spotlight. It’s easy to blame the NCAA for many, many problems in college sports, but one of the Power 4 personnel directors told The Athletic doing that is probably missing the mark.
“We always want a villain in a story, but at this moment, I don’t know if the villain here is the NCAA,” said that personnel director, who has been granted anonymity because he was not cleared by his school to comment. “A lot of people want to think there is an easy fix to this but there actually is no easy solution.”
A second member of the text group joked that they’re “basically like a Dr. Phil group chat” where they connect to air out their problems, often seeking advice in a role that has gotten a lot more complicated — and more important — over the past five years.
To them, this issue could become a tipping point for something much more seismic in college football: collective bargaining.
After talking to the personnel directors, The Athletic decided to survey 31 FBS coaches, including 16 head coaches, for not only their assessment of the situation but what solutions they had in the wake of the Pribula news. They spoke anonymously as they were not granted permission to go on the record by their programs.
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Solution 1: Move the calendar up
A Big Ten coordinator suggested that college football should start the season earlier and play the national title game on Jan. 1, the date when the postseason used to conclude.
Moving up the season was the suggestion of six respondents, but even the ones who back that idea realize it’s not an easy fix.
“The problem is that football has long operated as a one-semester sport. But now, because of the Playoff, it is a two-semester sport,” added a Big 12 head coach. “The cleanest answer is to move up the season: Take away conference championship games, roll right into the Playoff after the regular season, and finish by the end December or the first week of January. Then, you have a two-week portal window post-national championship game.
“But I’m doubtful of that happening. There are obvious issues with finals, school. Professional football within an academic calendar will never be.”
Said a Big Ten defensive assistant: “You can’t change the school’s schedule, so they have to change the football schedule. Start the season a week earlier — they already have a Week 0 anyway — and eliminate the two bye weeks. Make it one. Cut the time down between the conference title games and the Playoff and between the Playoff games.
“Get the national championship as close to the beginning of January as you can. Then you can make the portal window the end of December (the 26th through January 5th), so it should only affect, at most, the last two teams in the national championship. Move the bowl game dates earlier as well. You can’t have an open roster window while the season is still ongoing. It just doesn’t make any sense.
“The other thing we discussed here was allowing mid-year transfers to practice in the spring, even if they are not taking classes at their new school. Have them start in the summer if the semester has already started by the time they transfer in.”
Solution 2: Examine the unlimited transfer rule
This specific problem, which has essentially affected the top of the college football food chain (the schools involved in the CFP) is hard for other coaches on the other end of the FBS to be sympathetic about.
“The bigger issue is the unlimited transfer rule because it creates such a high volume of transfers,” a Mountain West head coach said. “The Power 4 schools don’t really have to do the same work that Group of 5 schools do, because they can outbid us at any point in the process. We have had multiple commits the last two weeks that walk as soon as they get more NIL elsewhere. We also can’t hold onto our top players for the same reason. The system works really well for like 200 or so kids and the top 20-30 schools, and it is a disaster for everyone else.”
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Solution 3: Shorten the transfer window …
Another Group of 5 head coach said he feels like the 20-day transfer window is too long.
“Open it for a week after the conference championship games,” he said. “Get in or don’t. Stay as long as you want to, but you shouldn’t need 20 days to make a decision. Not sure what job in the real world you have 21 days to decide.”
Shortening the portal window was brought up by seven coaches.
“It should be seven days max, except for a Playoff team, which get five days after its last game,” said an SEC head coach. “No idea how to solve this, but it’s a total mess.”
Solution 4: … Or nix the winter window altogether
The most commonly discussed alternative involved getting rid of the winter portal window.
“At least it would limit the issues we all have now,” said an SEC assistant coach. “And lessen the amount of times these guys are looking to leave and make it that they have to stay at least one calendar year.”
Solution 5: Do what the NFL does (bye-bye, spring ball)
The idea we heard that has the most support is emulating the NFL calendar — eliminating free agency in the middle of the season and incorporating more of an “offseason” for coaches and players. But that might create unintended consequences that some football coaches won’t like.
“To do that, we have to eliminate spring ball as we know it,” said an ACC head coach. “That’s why everyone wants to transfer before the season is over. Spring is phase one/phase two workouts like the NFL, and then have player movement at the end of the spring semester. Then, OTA/mini-camps in June. We don’t have to reinvent it. The NFL is pretty smart and has a good system.”
One of the Power 4 GMs who is part of the personnel text chain told The Athletic that moving forward, schools will need to try to lock up their rosters for the most part with deals in the middle of the season for the following season.
“We’re becoming an NFL model so we need to move as much towards an NFL calendar as we can,” he said. “I know some coaches don’t want that because they want their guys there for spring ball, but the coaches are going to have to give a little in order to get some semblance of normalcy moving forward.”
What’s actually viable?
Another member of the personnel text chain said roadblocks to the potential fixes are threats of lawsuits. Restrictions on athlete freedom of movement and ability to make money have been cut down in court.
“If a regular student can transfer midyear, why can’t a football player?” he said. “If a coach can leave for another job midyear, why can’t a football player? I don’t think those things would legally stand up in court until we have collective bargaining. Now, no spring ball and waiting until after the season, if you have collective bargaining, I think all of those things would be possible. There’ll be tradeoffs, but those things then are possible.”
The NCAA will get much of the blame for this mess. Another GM in that group text bemoaned that there were too many groups and subcommittees — the NCAA’s own clunky process gets too broad in the wrong directions.
“It’s 20 athletic directors from all levels of college football and we’re not talking about the same things those ADs are,” he said.
“We need a holistic approach,” said one of the personnel directors. “There’s a lot that goes into it. The only way you get there is for everybody to get together and figure it out as a collective. Maybe this is something that causes bigger change. Just moving one piece or making one rule — we’ve tried that too long. That’s not the answer. This is much bigger than moving or changing just one thing.
“The (college sports) world was changing. There was too much money coming in, and it wasn’t being dispersed to the right people. The industry didn’t change fast enough, and now we’ve gotten ourselves a major problem that we have to fix.”
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Jordon Kelly, /Icon Sportswire via Getty Images, Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
