10-06-2021, 04:00 PM
(10-06-2021, 02:11 PM)Goose Wrote: Many believe that the undergraduate transfer portal will become a good way to pick up players to fill positions of need. While I do believe it will help in some cases, I doubt it is going to be a reliable way to "fix" lack of talent at a given position. The guys that are transferring are doing so because they couldn't break into the lineup where they were as fast as they wanted. Often it is because they are not as good as they think they are. It also may be due to the fact they are hard to coach. I think there will be many more misses than hits in the undergraduate portal.
As a counterpoint I will offer that three consecutive H-Man trophy winners (who subsequently were drafted first overall and became NFL starters) from 2017-2019 were undergraduate transfers (Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Joe Burrow). By definition there will be more misses than hits due to the sheer numbers but there are plenty of examples of undergraduate transfers in the last few years who have had major impact on their new teams (Wan'Dale Robinson and Henry To'o To'o this year come to mind) so selectively recruiting transfers is going to continue to be a critical part of roster management; teams that eschew the transfer portal entirely or almost entirely (and Stanford may be in this group due to admissions issues) are going to be at a clear competitive disadvantage.