How to tame the transfer portal

Mike Gundy suggests more scholarship flexibility

Mike Gundy

Seekers of deep thought have had little reason to contact Mike Gundy, the Oklahoma State football coach.

He was photographed wearing a T-shirt celebrating One America News, a harsh critic of Black Lives Matter and other progressive entities, and when running back Chuba Hubbard protested and threatened to transfer, Gundy backed down and called himself a “dumbass.”

Nobody argued with that characterization, but then Gundy referred to “snowflakes” who entered the transfer portal and said “Generation Z” has a problem with adversity, apparently forgetting the conditions in which some of his recruits grew up. Blaming it all on “liberalism” is usually an applause line among football coaches in red-state locales, and Gundy’s regularly excellent seasons have shielded him from real consequences. But his reputation as a hand grenade is well-earned.

Recently Gundy made a proposal that is worth studying, regardless of the source. Frustrated by the portal and the instability that it sows, Gundy said that universities should consider “contractual scholarships” that would bring some sort of clarity to the Grand Central Station that has become college athletics.

Over 30 percent of last season’s Big East basketball players are in the portal. About one-fifth of Division I men’s basketball players are, too. In the first ten days after the football transfer portal opened, there were nearly 1,400 players joining in. In the 2021-22 transfer period, there were more than 3,000.

I can hear Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark podcast in the background: “If only they had been warned….”

This is not a shock to anyone who has even a glancing acquaintance with high school football, where quarterbacks switch schools if a coach looks at them sideways. It’s the inevitable consequence of free transferring. In the past, a kid had to sit out a season upon transferring, and that was often too much for his or her NBA, NFL or WNBA dreams. Now they combine hello and goodbye as quickly as Lennon and McCartney did.

Coaches have done this for years, you say. Yes, but coaches are adults with families who often began their careers on a diet of Skittles in a dingy video room. They leave for more money. And coaches are under contract. Which is Gundy’s point. The imposition of order on this process will not radically disturb the concept of player freedom. It also will let coaches return a modicum of structure of their programs, instead of becoming Iona men’s basketball, which lost coach Rick Pitino to St. John’s and then lost most of its roster, too.

The most common complaint about sports these days is this: “I can’t keep up with who’s playing anymore.” This is a first-world problem, of course, and there are plenty of tools available with which to update your roster. But if you’re a lifelong fan of your college team and you like the process of getting to know the players and watching them change and grow over the years, you might not feel the same way about a yearly truckload of Hessians that comes to town every season, especially if it doesn’t win.

A “contractual scholarship” has the potential to split the difference.

If you’re recruiting a one-and-done basketball player, you might offer that person a one-year deal. If you are imaginative enough to find an emerging player that no one else knew about, you might offer a four-year deal, especially if that player hasn’t received another offer. Such a deal would project the smaller schools, particularly in men’s basketball. They get plundered when they coach a player into some level of stardom, and then helplessly wave goodbye when a “power conference” shows up. A case in point is Malachi Smith, who played one year at Wright State, sat out one year to play for Chattanooga, played two years there and was Southern Conference Player of the Year, and burst into the stage at Gonzaga. Now he’s turning pro after one season. Had he signed a four-year deal, he wouldn’t have done that. He would have stayed with the school that saw something in him that no one else did.

This format would force coaches to become savvy personal directors. The bigger schools are leaning that way now, hiring de facto “general managers” to handle the inboxes and outboxes and let the coaches actually coach.

There are a few details. The contracts would be binding except in the case of criminal activity. If the school fires a coach, all the contracts are nullified, which would make schools think twice about firing coaches, just because a big-time donor lost a few bets. (If the coach simply leaves, the contracts would remain in place.)

If a player realizes he’d be better off elsewhere, at a less challenging level, that player can meet with the coach and come up with an exit plan. But the school can deny a player from moving, just as the player can deny the coach the option of a Deion Sanders-style dismissal. After all, it’s in the contract.

It would create a free-agent season for those freshmen and sophomores whose contracts expire. That would in turn create an off-season storyline that would increase the visibility of the free agents and promote them and the sport in general. (Football players would still be required to remain at school three years, pending a change in the NFL Basic Agreement.)

As the money flows, a player would be less likely to turn pro, which would lead to the existence of older teams. The 2023 NCAA tournment had several examples of fairly obscure men beating the heck out of ballyhooed boys. It might not be good for TV ratings, but it widens the possibilities. Stories like Florida Atlantic, with all its mature transfers, are the lifeblood of the tournament.

In an intercollegiate world of transactional behavior, what’s one more deal? If anyone sees a problem with this, speak now. Otherwise put it into place. You could even call it the Gundy Rule, in honor of the broken clock that found its moment.