My how a week changes things around recruiting. But the bigger dilemma, of course, is not that young men change their minds, it is that fans feel the same entitlement of which they complain and resort to social media bullying and taunting when a prospect changes their mind.
Fans are fully invested in their individual program and that can be a very good thing; but it too often leads down the dark alleys of the internet. IT would be nice if a schools fans were ‘better’ than that; but also understand that a few (maybe hundred) bad examples do not define a fan base.
It’s okay to be upset when a prized recruit changes his mind; it is not okay to ridicule their character or motivations – publicly or privately. Things happen in recruiting sometimes and those few bad examples reflect an entire fan base; be the one who publicly wishes the young man well; or privately wishes him well. It’s okay to ‘root against’ the team to which he ultimately commits; but to denigrate him as a person is not the manner in which adults should comport themselves.
It leads to the bigger problem that is going to need to be tackled by the NCAA. The transfer portal was a good thing. It allowed players who wanted to move an opportunity to do so and to go through a process that allowed coaches to know who could be contacted, etc. But it is also in its infancy and there are potential issues. Will the NCAA create more restrictive uses of the portal? Will the waiver process to allow immediate eligibility be more clearly defined? Will schools start limiting the numbers that can enter the transfer portal in any given year? These are important questions that must still be answered and resolved.
The NCAA has a burgeoning problem on their hands and they need to get in front of the issue before it gets out of hand and creates a cumbersome burden upon players, coaches and universities. The biggest problem is that it leaves players in a bind. When they enter the portal – they no longer have a scholarship at their university and that university is under no obligation to take them back should they find nowhere to go. IT has become a form of ‘processing’ athletes under the guise of self-authority. Nearly half of the 388 football players in the NCAA transfer portal have yet to find another school. They have no scholarship and no real options other than to hope their original school takes them back. There are some suggestions – but mostly those are from coaches looking for methods to sign more than 25 players (and process them out later again through the transfer portal). What is a solution? One way to eliminate this issue is to put a one-month moratorium on the loss of a scholarship for entering the portal. Allow the prospect to reach out and ‘test’ the transfer waters. If there is no interest, then the scholarship is guaranteed; but that also requires of the athlete confirming after 30-days what their final decision is. If they entered the portal, reached out to coaches and decide they don’t want to transfer, they can say so and return. After30 days? Nothing is guaranteed.
I think that there is also the option of creating a sort of limit on how many transfer portal undergraduates a school can accept in any given four-year rolling total. Mainly this should be set to limit Power-5 to Power-5 and Group-of-Five to Group-of-Five schools. The goal there is to force schools to be more selective about how many transfers they take and how many they let out in any given period; it might stop the ‘processing’ of athletes a little and create a better flow for both athletes and teams.
There is no one, pure, panacea for the ills of the transfer portal nor its deviated use as a processing tool, but there are some steps in the right direction that must be addressed sooner rather than later.
But, that depends on a historically slow moving buffalo like the NCAA to recognize the issue and institute change quickly. Somehow, I doubt that occurs.
RECRUITING NOTES:
- Trey Benson and Dillon Johnson will be visiting together next week. As we have mentioned for some time, both play running back and it seems likely that Oregon is taking just one running back. The staff like Johnson – on defense – and will present him with their vision for his future. Will that be enough to get him to choose defense at Oregon over running back elsewhere? That remains to be seen. It seems unlikely, but the Oregon coaches are very good at what they do, so let’s see how he responds after the visit.
- Marcus Harper will also be visiting next week. We have spoken with him in advance of his trip and will be getting a full post visit update. As mentioned earlier, I really like the Ducks chances here and there is a pretty good possibility that he commits to Oregon before the end of the summer. Could it be during his visit? If he likes it enough and feels that this is the right program for him it is certainly a possibility.
- Don’t expect five star tight end Darnell Washington to commit anytime soon – but that does not mean Oregon has no chance here. The Las Vegas (NV) Desert Pines standout is going to take his time. He has been to Alabama and Auburn multiple times, while Florida State has recently upped their communication levels with the elite tight end. He wants to take all of his official trips during the season once he has his list narrowed to those five schools; it will allow him a different level of interaction with the staff and teams in which he is most interested. After all, recruiting and coaching can show two different sides of a coach and those are both very important.
- Roman Wilson will also be in town next week. After his stellar camp performance he has been on a whirlwind tour and there are a lot of elite programs looking for his combination of size and elite speed. But the Ducks have all the chance in the world should they decide to take a commitment. Right now there are two spots left at wide receiver – one for Johnny Wilson and the other for any number of candidates that want to join. With such a limited number of openings at Oregon for wide receivers, there is sense of urgency for some who might want to lock in their spot.
- Drake Metcalf picked up a fourth star and is closing in on several more offers. Oregon offerrd him early and has been in on him since the beginning (one source mentioned back in January that the Ducks had been targeting him pretty hard), but the reality is that right now, Oregon is going to be on the outside looking in; Stanford is in a big lead early. According to Metcalf it is pretty simple: "I'm all about the academics. At the end of the day football only lasts so long.”
He has not yet committed and Oregon will continue to be in the mix, but still a longshot there.
All for now, as always, keep reading Duck Sports Authority for all of your Oregon updates!
