The great quarterback portal shuffle of 2024: Vol. II
One of the most consequential offseason in college football history for quarterback player movement continues.
I’ve been writing a lot on college quarterback play this season. How the position is coming to be dominated by veterans rather than hotshot recruits and consequently why taking transfer quarterbacks is becoming a preferred strategy.
There’s been a ton of movement of quarterbacks this offseason. Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule noted recently that a starting quarterback in the transfer portal costs seven-figures in “NIL” deals as the free agency nature of NIL and the transfer portal has become increasing above board and publicly discussed.
I don’t think pre-NIL quarterbacks could command that much money in the open market but I’m also not sure the money is THAT different that it ever was. Didn’t Cam Newton (allegedly) get a high 6-figure total to attend Auburn 10 years ago? Lot of inflation since then. It’s easier to transfer now and easier to pool money and pay kids but all of this isn’t exactly new save for the transfer component.
A factor I haven’t mentioned yet is the impact of these costs on program decision-making. Typically teams would respond to down years by firing coaching staff, often having to pay substantial buyouts to do so. It wasn’t really financially efficient, but teams often felt they had to do something to avoid collapses in recruiting or fan/donor investment. Now? Why spend a bunch of money buying out an offensive coordinator if the problem was ultimately a poor quarterback?
Why spend a milly buying out the coordinator when that money could bring in a veteran transfer who might actually execute the vision? If it doesn't work, both might be off the books the next year anyways. The dangers of falling into a lull are also reduced by the promise of simply doing a quick roster rebuild via the transfer portal.
You can see a lot of this decision-making reflected in some of the fresh movement and transactions in the transfer portal. Today we’re going to talk about a few more.
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