The NCAA transfer portal dust settled over the weekend.
It will kick up again in April, when another 30-day portal window opens, not coincidentally around the same time spring practice around college football is ending. For players, the spring portal window amounts to a second read of the proverbial writing on the wall.
At least for now, however, the writing on Alabama football's wall hasn't said the wrong thing to one of its elite players.
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The same can't be said at Ole Miss , where the Rebels lost the SEC's best running back to the portal in Quinshon Judkins . There are some cryptic indications on social media , including from coach Lane Kiffin himself, that Judkins' massive pile of rushing yards came with a pile of headaches, too. Regardless, his departure is a gut punch to the Rebels' offense. And wherever he goes, his next name, image and likeness deal will be a stuffed bag.
It's only a matter of time before Alabama loses a Judkins-level player because another school offers a better NIL deal. It's already happened in other sports; core talents from the Crimson Tide 's NCAA Super Regional-qualifying baseball team wasted no time transferring when its season ended in June. UA football has a much stronger hold on its top players than the baseball program, for reasons both related and unrelated to NIL, but it certainly isn't immune.
And when it happens, it'll come out of nowhere.
That's the key difference between early exits for the NFL draft and transfer exits for NIL money. When it comes to the NFL draft, there aren't many surprises. College coaches know what's coming, and they can plan for it. If you don't think former USC cornerback Domani Jackson 's transfer to Alabama last month had something to do with then- expected (and now confirmed) NFL draft departures of cornerbacks Kool-Aid-McKinstry and Terrion Arnold , you're not paying attention. Only players who aren't projected as top draft picks surprise anyone by leaving school early.
The transfer portal, and NIL's impact on it, offers no such predictability.
All it takes to rip the heart-and-soul player out of a team's offense or defense is a big enough check with a different NIL collective's name on it. There's a rule against tampering, of course, but it's loop-holed easier than tax law, and abused worse than the speed limit.
The Alabama equivalent of Ole Miss losing Judkins would've been a Jalen Milroe or a Caleb Downs waving an unexpected goodbye, and leaving behind a void that National Signing Day can't really fill. Milroe is an early favorite to win the 2024 Heisman Trophy. While there's still plenty of room for growth in his game, his 2023 season laid enough of a foundation to compete for the honor. Downs, for his part, led the team in tackles as a true freshman and has enormous upside. Taking care of players like that helps to lock the roster's backdoor before new players get paid through the front door. To date, it appears Alabama has a strong understanding of that.
The Crimson Tide lost 17 scholarship players to the winter transfer portal, including some promising talents like DB Earl Little, but not an established star.
It'll happen one day.
And when it does, the reckoning won't be easy.
Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23 and the Talkin' Tide podcast. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @chasegoodbread.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama football avoids transfer portal gut punch once again
