It’d be easy for me, the lowest man in the college football food chain, to sit here and provide a solution to college football’s transfer portal problems.
Then again those at the top of the food chain don’t seem to want to do anything about it so it wouldn’t matter anyway.
Beau Pribula’s somewhat surprising announcement to transfer and sit out of Penn State’s College Football Playoff trip because the transfer portal rules – or rather the lack of – feels avoidable but makes the lack of leadership all the more frustrating.
As a fan I’m not bothered by his decision. It is not that Pribula has done anything wrong by transferring either. That’s his choice, and within those rules, one that he is – and should be – allowed to make. The annoyance sits with the asinine rules around the transfer portal and its timing that have created this mess, putting Pribula and Penn State in a strange spot.
Moreover, this all felt avoidable and now players, coaches and, infinitesimally, fans are the ones punished for it.
On Sunday, Pribula announced that he’s entering the transfer portal and because of its wild rehoming rush, he will not be a part of Penn State’s College Football Playoff game.
Pribula’s hands are tied right now. If he wants to play football with more regularity than he has when thrusted into games or series at Penn State, he has to transfer. It’s a part of the accepted life in the sport. That’s especially clear when, now because of this move, it becomes more evident that the probability of Penn State starter Drew Allar’s pending future favors his return to Happy Valley than his NFL departure.
And of course, Pribula wants to play football. He is a football player. No one with a competitive bone in their body wants to sit on the bench.
However, because Pribula wants to give himself the best opportunity moving forward, and because the transfer portal is open now when the season isn’t over – in part ahead of most schools’ spring semester – Pribula has to decide sooner rather than later whether to stay or go. The spots he’d be looking to fill will fill up while Penn State plays in the 12-team tournament and other schools and potential transfers sit at home around the holidays.
When the portal first came about, many decried it and the players who jumped into it. But it has largely proven to be a good thing, in terms of both power and opportunity for players. The vitriol for it has dissipated as, like many other changes, we’ve all gotten used to it.
We also had gotten relatively used to it and how it worked well in the four-team era. Very rarely did a top player from one of those four teams in the College Football Playoff enter the portal ahead of the national semifinals. If they did, it was probably a player who would not see the field during those playoffs.
With the 12-team playoff and its schedule though, all of this was bound to happen. Change in the timing or some sort of solution was needed. It is much harder to control the variables when there are three times as many, and Pribula won’t be the last player to enter the portal while his team enters the College Football Playoff. He may even not be the last this season either.
But for whatever reason, over the last few years, when people have flagged that this could be an issue – that the timeline needed to be changed or a solution was needed to be found – especially with playoff expansion, the rule makers have ignored it.
They left the flawed system in place.
What makes it frustrating is that there is no easy fix to this. Transferring and the timing of it is related to the school aspect of the sport and enrollment needs to happen soon. Elsewhere among teams that didn’t make the playoffs, roster spots are opening and closing briskly.
What makes it more frustrating is that it’s not a fan or player’s job to fix it either. They are however the ones paying for it. Fans and players also aren’t the ones being paid to find and fix these problems either.
It has put Pribula in a bad spot from the perspective of short-sighted, hiding-behind-the-keyboard fans. They’ll think he’s selfish when he’s just abiding by the system he’s supposed to follow. It’s put Penn State in a bad spot because it will have to play without its backup quarterback — even though it’s not done anything wrong to push him away.
Because Pribula won’t play in Penn State’s playoff contest against SMU, he will also miss what would have been an opportunity to experience something with the team he’s played for and had a hand in helping get there.
Plus, Penn State’s coaches additionally have to prepare for a doomsday scenario without him too. And yes, Eeyorian Nittany Lions fans have to wonder if something does go wrong, how bad can it go?
This all could have been avoided if the portal was tweaked and those who are financially responsible for spotting these problems addressed them head on.
It’s a mess because no one who can do something about all of this thought this through even though they’re overly compensated to fix these types of issues.
It’s a failure that’s unfair to players. It’s a failure that could have been avoided.
It’s a failure that needs to be fixed.
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