Opinion: NCAA Needs to Grab Hold of Transfer Market

College Football free agency.

That's what the world of college football has become. Due to the one-time transfer rule being approved by the NCAA, we have a record number of transfer portal entries, and it's seemingly growing by the hour.

This rush of entries into the portal was to be expected. However, the rules of communications being broken behind closed doors certainly were not.

College football programs all across the country are witnessing rules being broken left and right in terms of contact with their current players. It's not even a secret anymore within prominent programs.

In an article released by ESPN's Adam Rittenberg, several Power-5 coaches were very honest about the state of college football.

"You have teams trying to poach kids," an ACC assistant said. "There's a lot of shady s--- going on."

Shady is an understatement.

NCAA rules clearly state that until a player enters the NCAA transfer portal, college programs are not allowed to contact that player. In an ideal world of college football, where the governing body — the NCAA — actually enforces its own rules, these rulebreakers would be brought to justice.

However, that's not happening any time soon it appears.

So, what do you do?

In professional organizations such as the NFL or NBA, players are allowed to gauge the market on their services. Generally, this is done through an agent, and though that's not possible on the collegiate level there is something that could be done.

Allow Players to Contact Coaches

High-school prospects aren't allowed to receive phone calls from collegiate programs until September of their junior year. However, the players themselves can contact collegiate coaches as early as they want.

There's no reason the transfer market can't operate in a similar facet. If players are unhappy with their current program, allow them to gauge their market value by contacting the schools themselves.

If you allow these players to gauge their marketplace prior to entering the portal, perhaps the total number of entries wouldn't be this drastically high.

When Player X that attends a major Power-5 school calls around and finds out his market value is not as high as he potentially thought, then perhaps he never hits the portal. Maybe he settles in where he's at and keeps on working.

There's clearly no willingness on the part of the NCAA to govern these rules in terms of contacting players that are at other programs, so if it's going to be a free-for-all like it currently is, at least be honest about it.

The old adage of "rules are meant to be broken" shouldn't apply to a competitive marketplace that was intended to have balance and control.

Opinion: NCAA Needs to Grab Hold of Transfer Market

Allow Players to Contact Coaches

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