Listen to a press conference or sports radio or the loud voices on Twitter and it’d be easy to think that the advent of the transfer portal is sure to damage college football, especially at the G5 level. But most of the coaches, at least in Texas, disagree. The transfer portal presents new challenges, and it isn’t a perfect system, but many head coaches argue that their rosters have never been as talented. 

The sky isn’t falling. The game of football isn’t dying. Like most changes, the outcry outweighs the outcomes. The seven G5 programs in Texas added an average of 9.7 transfers to its programs between the end of the 2021 season and the beginning of fall camp in 2022. SMU led the way with 17. UTEP was the lowest with one, but the Miners did add nine JUCO players to the roster. Of the 68 incoming transfers at the G5 programs in Texas, 43 came from the Power Five level. That’s 63 percent.

The talent is trickling down more often than it is bolting for greener pastures. And the more successful and attractive programs are attracting the best talent, and retaining its starters. The foursome of SMU, Houston, UTSA, and Rice brought in 43 transfers with 35 arriving from Power Five Programs (81.3 percent). Those four teams went 36-16 last season. Take away Rice and the three remaining schools went 32-8. Rice's academic reputation and a few more hires on the recruiting staff helped the Owls keep pace. The trio of North Texas, UTEP, and Texas State combined to go 17-21 in 2021. Only eight of the 25 transfers signed by those three schools arrived from Power Five programs (32 percent). 

“Coaches are control freaks, and we don’t like to change,” UTSA head coach Jeff Traylor said at the 2022 THSCA Coaching Convention in July. “You better adapt, or you’ll end up like the dinosaurs. It is the greatest game in the world. Is college football under attack? I don’t know. We’ve probably thought it was under attack for the entire history of the game.” 

UTSA is the perfect example of the modern dilemma of the transfer portal. In theory, the Roadrunners were ripe for the picking by bigger budgeted programs at the Power Five level. UTSA returns multiple starters from a Conference USA championship team. Guys such as quarterback Frank Wilson and wide receiver Zakhari Franklin would’ve been hot commodities on the free market. But rather than test those waters, all the returning starters for the Roadrunners returned for 2022 rather than cash in at other programs. 

The same thing happened across most of the G5 level. Yes, Rice lost star wide receiver Jake Bailey and North Texas lost defensive ends Grayson and Gabriel Murphy, but those are exceptions. The Owls replaced Bailey with Tulsa transfer Sam Crawford and West Virginia transfer Isaiah Esdale. North Texas dipped into the JUCO ranks to add All-American defensive end Tom Trieb. 

“We’ve landed some really good players from the portal,” North Texas head coach Seth Littrell said. “It is too early to tell if it is a net gain for us. Fortunately, we didn’t lose a lot of guys that we didn’t want to lose. Sometimes, it is best for everyone involved to move on and that is okay.”

Turnover is nothing new at the college level. Coaches leave all the time. The state of Texas is home to 12 FBS programs, and three of those debut new head coaches in 2022. Sonny Dykes left SMU for rival TCU. Texas Tech fired its head coach in the middle of the 2021 season and Joey McGuire left his position coach duties at Baylor to take the job in the middle of the season. Yet, the players leveraging those same opportunities is viewed as an attack on the model of college football. 

Most coaches believe that NIL and the transfer portal are good things for their players. College football is big business and players deserve a piece of the pie. Coaches can leave for better opportunities, so players should, as well. But that doesn’t mean it is a perfect system. There needs to be transfer windows to prevent random exoduses from rosters. Fighting against evolution is futile, however. Coaches are better off adjusting to the waters rather than swimming against the current out of principle or pride. 

“In general, every year we need to realize that change and turnover on the roster is a fact of life,” SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee said. “This year, the players we brought in are better players than the ones we lost. That’s the goal every year. We’re learning in real time, so you take it one year at a time and focus on building the best roster you can for the year ahead of you.”

And maybe that’s the main difference. Coaches used to build rosters based on three years down the road. Teams replaced the exiting left tackle by recruiting high school talent years prior so that the next man up was college ready. Now, those same programs can just dip into the transfer portal and replace that graduating left tackle with a junior who has started college games. Roster construction is a year-to-year exchange in the modern landscape. 

“We’re in a great spot this year, but I have no idea how we’ll look next year,” Texas State head coach Jake Spavital said. “The transfer portal is why we have the most depth we’ve ever had. It can serve as a Band-Aid for any problems you have on your roster.” 

Life is about taking the good with the bad. So is coaching football. The transfer portal added headaches to the daily life of a football coach. A player can leave at any time for any reason. The current roster must be always recruited. Culture becomes even more important. So does communication and success. College football remains a relationship business, and the coaches who perfect that craft are likely to keep their rosters intact, even if some other programs can offer more money. 

At the end of the day, the transfer portal makes college football rosters more competitive. Most of the transfers added by these programs will immediately compete in the two-deep. I’d estimate that eight of the nine new transfers added by UTSA become starters. At SMU, 17 or 18 of those added transfers are expected to play significant snaps in year one. That wasn’t always true in old-school recruiting because the bust rate is much higher with prep players. 

There are real threats to college football, but players being able to leave for better opportunities isn’t on the list. Conference greed eliminating the regional aspect of college football is a much bigger issue. So is the four-team College Football Playoff and the monopoly ESPN has on the narrative. The sky isn’t falling. College football is better than ever. Just enjoy the show, and maybe spend an hour looking over your favorite teams roster because it is likely much different than the last time those guys suited up.