Coaches question timing of transfer portal window as they prepare for College Football Playoff

SMU coach Rhett Lashlee took a moment while preparing his team for the College Football Playoff to address the ever-growing concern over the open transfer portal window.

His problem isn't with players wanting to transfer. Rather, Lashlee's issue, one shared with other coaches, is the timing for those with teams still playing, whether in the 12-team playoff like the Mustangs or in one of the many bowls into early January.

“I hate it for our players,” Lashlee said Tuesday. “I told them ... I hate it that you guys, you get a chance to play in the College football Playoff, yet you are either forced to decide do I go in the portal or not. Or let’s call it like it is, people are bombarding our roster trying to pick people off our roster, and we’re trying to focus on the playoff.”

Not to mention, it's also time for final exams at SMU and many other schools.

Players looking to transfer must enter the portal by Dec. 28, or have to wait until April 16. That timeframe was approved in October — a window reduced by 15 days after earlier complaints from coaches.

Lashlee understands that players want the ability to transfer for more playing time elsewhere, or an opportunity to capitalize on name, image and likeness. But he insists that even players don't like the parameters in which they now have to make those decisions.

“We talk about making a system that is all great for them, but we haven’t. I mean, that’s part of your job as adults is to do what’s best for young people, not what they want necessarily. They don't want this," he said. "There’s no other sport at all that has free agency in the season. It’s sad, it’s terrible.”

SMU (11-2) plays at Penn State (11-2) on Saturday in a first-round CFP game. The primary backup quarterbacks for both teams are in the transfer portal.

Preston Stone, who was 13-3 as SMU's starter before getting replaced by Kevin Jennings in the fourth game this year, is still staying with the Mustangs in the playoffs. Penn State sophomore Beau Pribula won’t be with the Nittany Lions.

“You hear the story about their backup quarterback saying, I don’t have a choice. ... That’s wrong, that’s unacceptable. That’s not okay,” Lashlee said. “He shouldn’t have to make that decision. Preston here is doing the same thing. Now, he has chosen to stay with us, and we’re working with him. But it’s still a juggling act for him.”

Penn State coach James Franklin said Monday after Pribula's decision that the quarterback didn't want to leave the program now, but didn't feel like he could wait until after their last game.

“The way the portal is, and the timing of it, 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,” Franklin said. "And I agree with him.”

Colorado coach Deion Sanders is no stranger to the portal game. He has dabbled in it quite often in retooling the roster. This season, the Buffaloes have more than 40 newcomer transfers. It has helped them go from four wins in his Colorado debut — one that included a major roster makeover — to a 9-3 team that will play BYU in the Alamo Bowl on Dec. 28.

“The transfer portal should be no surprise to you,” Sanders explained.

He has certainly got it down to a science.

“You’re probably going to lose two guys you didn’t expect, and you’re probably going to gain several guys you didn’t expect, but you’ve got to have a board,” Sanders said. “You’ve got to do your studies. ... I don’t think the portal has ever been a surprise to us.”

If a player wants to jump into the portal, so be it, with one caveat: “You’re not going to come here and practice and eat and be merry and have a Merry Christmas with us, then leave right out of the game,” Sanders said. “I call that using somebody. You’re not going to use us.”

Too many departures in the portal can certainly have adverse affects on a program, such as Marshall pulling out of a bowl game after too many of its players decided to transfer in the aftermath of a coaching change.

Lashlee said the easiest solution would be to not open the transfer portal in December.

“We've got to look long and hard at the schedule. Coaches have been saying this for the last three or four years with all these changes," he said. "And what happens is we just make all these these random changes because we don’t want to get sued, or we don’t want to do this or we don’t want to do that, and we don’t think about the long-term effects it has on the young people that we’re supposed to be serving.”

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