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Unlimited transfer portal 'sucking life out of college sports.' Ask man who ignited it
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- Unlimited transfer portal 'sucking life out of college sports.' Ask man who ignited it
One of the state government officials who sued the NCAA and won unlimited annual transfers for college athletes now calls the unrestricted transfer portal a "train wreck" and says it is "sucking the life out of college sports."
"I think the portal is probably the single biggest problem that needs to be solved…" Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti told USA TODAY Sports. "The portal is just sucking the life out of college sports and putting student-athletes in a bad position. And if there is one change in the immediate future that needs to happen, it's fixing the portal."
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Skrmetti effectively created this new system of unlimited annual player transfers , along with the attorneys general of several other states. They filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA in December 2023 seeking to eliminate rules that restricted undergraduate players from transferring to a new school more than once in their college careers.
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They later were joined by the federal justice department before winning a settlement with the NCAA in 2024 that gave Division I athletes more freedom of movement than athletes have in the NFL, NBA or other pro sports.
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Bedlam has ensued as a result. In one case, a prominent head coach quit over it . In another case, a football player is about to join his seventh college in seven years . In another, a university sued its own quarterback to prevent him from leaving for another school.
But Tennessee attorney general doesn't regret NCAA lawsuit
Skrmetti views the transfer restriction he helped eliminate as an illegal rule that unfairly prevented players from maximizing their earnings after finally being allowed to make money for their names, images and likenesses (NIL). He said that old system needed to be torn down because it illegally restricted player compensation and freedom. The mess that's ensued as a result is not the responsibility of the state attorneys general who sued to remove the rule, according to him. He said building a new system with better rules that can withstand legal scrutiny is up to college sports leaders and perhaps the U.S. Congress .
"It's not that the NCAA got sued by states. It's that the NCAA was behaving illegally," Skrmetti said. "And so just like with the NIL stuff, it was going to happen, like somebody was going to push back. And the point of the litigation is not to carve in stone the Wild West. It's to get conclusive rulings that the old ways are broken, and it's time to start creating what the next college sports regime looks like."
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, left, played a key role in the legal decision that opened the floodgates of NCAA's transfer portal.
Transfer portal is The Wild West without restrictions
Skrmetti said the transition to a new system to replace the old one is "taking way longer than it should." In the meantime, he called the current transfer system "just awful." Some examples show what's happened after the old rule was eliminated:
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∎ One player, quarterback TJ Finley, will be playing for his seventh school since his freshman year in 2020 . Finley is headed to Incarnate Word after previous stops at LSU, Auburn, Texas State, Tulane, Western Kentucky and Georgia State.
∎ ESPN reported more than 6,500 Division I football players entered the transfer portal this year from Jan. 2 to Jan. 16, virtually all of them looking for more playing time, more money or a bigger spotlight. More than 10,500 combined entered the portal in Division I, II and III, according to NCAA.com . In Division I alone, that's enough to create 62 new teams of 105 players each. (The NCAA declined to confirm any numbers but said Division I player volume in the transfer portal was down from the year before.)
∎ Some schools did create mostly all-new teams by flipping their rosters and starting over with transfer players. Colorado football coach Deion Sanders flipped his roster again with 47 new incoming transfer players including non-scholarship players, offsetting more than 35 Colorado players who entered the transfer portal to leave the team after a 3-9 season in 2025. New Oklahoma State football coach Eric Morris took more than 50 new transfers while more than 60 transferred out.
∎ Like Sanders, some coaches are using the transfer portal as a pro-style waiver wire to nudge certain players off the team, overtly or not. Indiana running back Roman Hemby said he was pushed into the portal at Maryland by coach Mike Locksley.
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∎ The head coach at Kansas State, Chris Klieman, quit because of the chaos at age 58, telling The Mercury in Manhattan, Kansas, he was at his "wits' end" with the roster upheaval caused by unlimited transfers.
∎ Duke University recently sued its own quarterback, Darian Mensah , after he said he was transferring out. That's because Duke had a contract with Mensah through Dec. 31, 2026 and wanted to prevent him from joining another school after he previously transferred from Tulane. The two sides recently reached a settlement .
High school recruits getting squeezed out by transfer portal?
The University of Colorado's Board of Regents also recently expressed concern about opportunities for local high school recruits as Sanders fills most of his roster with transfers from out of state instead. The board wanted assurances from Colorado's new athletic director, Fernando Lovo , he would improve relations with high schools in the state.
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Meanwhile, the search for playing time continues for some transfer players every year while they're supposed to be making progress toward a college degree. For example, quarterback Walter Taylor III started at Vanderbilt in 2022, transferred to Colorado for 2024, moved to Ball State in 2025 and now is back at Vanderbilt at a different position in 2026 — tight end. He's been searching for playing time but hasn't appeared in a game since he left Vanderbilt the first time.
"When you combine unlimited transfers with NIL and zero enforcement, you create instability," said former Penn State tight end Adam Breneman, co-founder The College Sports Company . "A player moving to seven schools is not healthy for college football, roster building, locker rooms, or player development. There has to be a middle ground where athletes have freedom, but also accountability, especially now that many are being paid."
Other state attorneys general no longer bragging?
The attorneys general bragged about their legal victory in press releases May 30, 2024. The news release from Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost came with a headline that said, "AG Yost and Allies Score Major Win for College Athletes."
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"This long-term change is exactly what we set out to accomplish," Yost said in that 2024 release about unrestricted transfers.
But now when asked about the consequences of that action, none of them discussed it except Skrmetti. Yost's press office didn't respond to three detailed emails and a phone call since Jan. 12. New York's attorney general office didn't want to talk about it on the record. The federal Justice Department declined comment.
The office of Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser recommended USA TODAY Sports contact the attorney general offices in Ohio and Tennessee with questions about the fallout because they "were the lead states on this litigation and settlement."
USA TODAY Sports contacted the press offices of all seven original plaintiffs in the case: the then-attorney generals of Ohio, Colorado, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia. USA TODAY Sports also contacted the offices of attorneys general who joined the case later — Mississippi, Virginia, Minnesota and Washington, D.C., plus the federal Justice Department. USA TODAY Sports e-mailed each office at least twice since Jan. 12 and followed up with phone calls, each explaining the topic of inquiry in detail.
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Only Skrmetti agreed to an interview.
"Tearing things down is sometimes necessary," Skrmetti said. "But that's never the end of the story. This is the time when we need to be building what comes next. And I don't think we want state political figures doing that through litigation. I think it really needs to be a conversation between the coaches, the student-athletes, the conferences, the universities, the NCAA leadership, everybody who's involved in this."
Did education get lost in NCAA argument?
NCAA rules that previously restricted players from transferring once were based on promoting education.
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Before 2021, NCAA rules generally prohibited undergraduate players from transferring at all without first sitting out a season at their new school — unless they played sports besides football, basketball, baseball and men's hockey. The NCAA said this was designed to help transfers catch up academically after transferring in with credits that might not be accepted at their new school .
In 2006, players who graduated college also were allowed to transfer without sitting out a year if they still had NCAA eligibility — a way to reward those who already graduated. The NCAA then further eased transfer restrictions in 2021 by allowing players to transfer one time without sitting out a year .
"The academic ties to college sports are being eroded by a deluge of lawsuits in both state and federal courts," the NCAA said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports. "In some cases, student-athletes are seeking eighth years of collegiate eligibility — despite the fact that an average student completes their undergraduate degree in five years or fewer. The NCAA's transfer rules were challenged by several state attorneys general, usually in service of one student-athlete on one team at one university in their state."
The West Virginia battleground vs NCAA
One example of how an attorney general got involved and used the case to score points with local fans came in West Virginia . In 2023, men's basketball player RaeQuan Battle wanted to transfer from Montana State to West Virginia and play right away. But he had already transferred once, from Washington to Montana State, leading to his request being rejected by the NCAA.
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Then-West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey got involved by writing a letter to the NCAA on Battle's behalf and then joining the lawsuit to strike down the transfer restriction, saying it unfairly restrained athletes' ability to maximize their economic opportunities after the NCAA finally allowed players to earn NIL money in 2021.
The NCAA eventually decided to relent and settle the case after U.S. District Judge John Preston Bailey in West Virginia issued a preliminary injunction against the NCAA at the states' request in December 2023.
"WVU took a chance on RaeQuan Battle, who faced a disadvantage by being restricted by the Transfer Eligibility Rule," the judge noted in his ruling.
Morrisey is now the governor of West Virginia after being elected in November 2024.
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Will there ever be new NCAA transfer rules?
There's no going back now, not without Congressional intervention or massive change that deems athletes as employees who can form a union to collectively bargain for a different system . But why would athletes want the system to change given how much freedom and leverage they currently have?
"Re-imposing restrictions at the NCAA level would be an antitrust violation," said Mit Winter, an attorney specializing in NIL issues and a former basketball player at William & Mary.
The notion of making or enforcing rules to promote college education also now might seem quaint, given the amount of money coursing through the system to coaches, facilities and now players.
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"The athletes are recruited to play their sport and their life is completely built around their sport," Winter told USA TODAY Sports. "So to me, the frequent movement we see now is a natural occurrence of what college athletics really is at the highest level: pro sports. And the athletes didn't bring this about. The schools did by deciding their sports teams are going to be marketing and entertainment vehicles for the universities instead of just another part of the educational experience."
Skrmetti said it's up to college sports leaders and/or Congress to build a better system in place of the "illegal" rule he helped knock down.
"There has to be something that can survive a lawsuit but that resolves this so that people can get back to enjoying college sports and not wonder, you know, what constellation of players they are going to be looking at in their team's uniform next year," Skrmetti said.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer . Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NCAA transfer portal a train wreck, says attorney general who ignited it
