The Transfer Portal and College Coaches Tampering With Other Teams’ Players
Article profile photo: Travis Hunter; credit to Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports.
For anyone that follows college football closely, hearing about the good, the bad and the ugly from the Transfer Portal are probably the norm. More specifically, it’s mostly been the bad and the ugly.
The Transfer Portal is here to stay. It’s also causing chaos. Players are jumping into the Transfer Portal at an alarming rate on their own, leaving college programs with big holes to fill out of the blue.
There’s also the concern over improprieties. There have been consistent rumors about various college coaches reaching out to players on other rosters before they entered the Transfer Portal. That’s a direct NCAA violation and comes with likely recruiting sanctions such as loss of scholarships and coaches not being able to recruit off campus, etc.
The ACC has certainly been in the news with this situation. One of Miami’s opponent’s, the North Carolina Tar Heels, reportedly had their star quarterback receive overtures from other schools to transfer.
Rumors of big money to do it, too.
While Drake Maye recently came out and denied the allegations that were brought up by Pittsburgh head coach Pat Narduzzi (odd within itself), that was actually after North Carolina head coach Mack Brown had previously made comments about Maye being tampered with. Maybe came out with a statement. If one reads Maye’s statement closely, however, he chose his words wisely.
Here’s an excerpt from what Maye stated about tampering from an article by Sports Illustrated:
“Pitt’s coach ended up putting that out there. I don’t know what that was about,” Maye said Thursday. “You have to enter the transfer portal to talk to these schools and hear these offers. For me, I think college football is going to turn into a mess. They’re going to have to do something. There was nothing to me or my family directly offered from any of these other schools. Nothing was said or offered to the Mayes.”
You can read the full Sports Illustrated article here.
Words like “directly” came from Maye. So did the point about offers coming from the schools. With the Underbelly of recruiting, the intermediaries are often the culprits, i.e. boosters and handlers that do the cheating instead of people directly employed by the institutions. It’s a way to keep coaches and institutions from getting into trouble in case a person is caught.
Regardless of what one believes about the Maye situation, here’s one big-time player that’s not even remotely denying that there’s tampering going on, and it’s involving another ACC school.
Ironic that it’s the primary rival for Miami that’s allegedly in quesiton. Did FSU, or someone connected to FSU, contact Hunter? Possibly, but it’s not like the Seminoles are alone either.
Here’s a better question.
How many schools, in total, contacted Hunter before he ever officially entered the Transfer Portal?
10? 15? More?
One may or may not believe that the Noles bent the rules as Hunter alleged in that tweet, but it’s certainly a good bet that several schools beyond the Noles made contact with Hunter and did so illegally. It’s also certainly now out there for the public to debate.
Does college football have a problem with tampering? It certainly seems that way. Maye and Hunter are just a few of the players in question among numerous others. It will be interesting to see what the NCAA does, if anything, to try and resolve the situation.
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