Transfer Portal-Good or Bad?

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I know there is a lot of debate on whether the transfer portal is good or bad for Miami and other non-Power 5 teams.

A little math on how it affected Miami looking at the 2023 roster as is now known.

Transfer portal losses to Power 5
Rusty Feth
Caleb Shaffer
John Saunders, Jr.
Rowan Zolan

Transfer portal additions with Power 5 experience
Joe Wilkens, Jr. Notre Dame
Cam Williams Indiana
William Hardrick Miss State
Jayden Williams USC
Cade McDonald. Mich State
Maddox Kopp. Colorado
John Young. Kentucky
Rashod Amos. South Carolina
Jeremiah Campbell. Louisville
Jackson Kuwatch Ohio State

Four losses of proven performers.

Ten additions of generally unproven performers but who most likely possess more potential than most of those who entered the portal who ended up at lower level programs or will no longer play football.

We will see how 2023 plays out but 2022 seemed to work out positively for us on the transfer portal based on who came in.

All of these portal additions were productive contributors in 2022.

McKee
Ugwu
Wise
Suttle
Marshall
Dowell
Brekke

We also got playing time from both Bjorson and LaBounty.

Of course, we lost Pace, Phelps, Butler and A.J. Mayer (who did not go Power 5).

The argument could be made that the portal losses from 2023 are worse than 2022 even though we lost some really top notch players especially on the defensive side in '22…

However, these guys generally only were one and doners.

Losing 2023 guys Saunders, Zolan (and Humphreys who did not go Power 5) with multiple years of eligibility might be more of a negative impact long-term,

On balance, I believe the jury is still out on whether this proves the portal to be a benefit to Miami or not.

We will clearly lose some top players every year to Power 5.

However, if coaches can bring in Power 5 talent from the portal to offset the losses or, ideally, provide a net overall benefit, the portal might be advantageous.

Of course, this ignores the disruptive impact the entire transfer portal process is in the first place in building a program and culture.

Let’s hope we see similar production to last year with this year’s portal additions.

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great post thank you

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If we continue to get players from programs like those I would call our use of the portal successful.

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That’s a great question. I think the answer is we don’t know yet. The portal is definitely bad for team chemistry and culture. Coaches are using the portal in a negative fashion to get rid of players. Almost like cutting an NFL player for cap space. They are being told to enter the portal. This is a fact. I have several friends coaching college football from Power 5 to JUCO. The larger schools seem to be flipping rosters and sending the kids they don’t want or have the luxury to hang onto to the portal. They think as much as half of Portal players are there due to their coach rather than the player wanting to leave.The fans will find it hard to keep up with and feel connected to the rosters. I also feel that a coach does not have time to evaluate a freshman player in one year. The other side to that is a coach can flip his roster from weak to strong in a single season if he knows what he is doing. There will always be good available players to choose from. The other plus is a player that’s buried deep in the depth chart because the starter is in his 5th, 6th, or 7th year, they can leave and go play. While that’s good for the player, it’s potentially bad for the team. The gentlemen on this thread seem to think losing players to the portal is no big deal. The logic seems to be “if they were good enough to play they would be on the field”. I don’t buy into that so much. Especially with highly touted Freshmen. We won’t know for 2 years what we lost. Yet, that’s the new world we live in, at least until the new NIL bill gets passed. Making kids stay for 2-3 years before transferring would be perfect in my opinion.

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Agree, BallCoach, that it’s really too early to tell because it’s a relatively new phenomenon and its rules are evolving year to year. Add the COVID year and redshirts that have given us temporary 7 year players working on PhDs and it clouds the issue even further. I do not like it being used like Deion used it this year…running off 63 Colorado student athletes. I hope a handful of those kids cause him a bit of on-field embarrassment during the next couple seasons.

I am happy to see we’re getting some solid contributions from the occasional FSC transfer-in guys. McKee was a great find. Brekke contributed. Hopefully we get major contributions from Lardavian this season.

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In the real world, the transfer portal is called a job board. Like say Indeed, Monster, LinkedIn et. all.

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Another impact of the portal on our roster. While we have 46 guys listed as Freshman or Redshirt Freshmen - all high school recruits - we only have six listed as Seniors. Four of those six are transfer portal guys.

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