The modern day transfer portal is in a very different place than it was 20 years ago. Most of the current problems with it have erupted after the creation of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) with no set rules in place for College athletes and universities to follow.

In 2021, a law was passed across all divisions for college athletes to be awarded deals through companies and social media calling it NIL. NIL boomed across successful players in college making them eligible to make more than just their school given academic scholarship.

The opportunity of NIL through college athletes sparked the transfer portal with multiple big name college athletes entering the portal. It was purely a money chase; the portal was seeing more activity than it had in years.

Along with the creation of NIL, the Transfer Portal has seen rule changes as well. The rules up to 2018 included that players must sit a year or redshirt after transferring to a school for a year where it was then changed to immediate eligibility in 2021, allowing players to not have to sit a year per transferring. Then, in 2024, a rule was passed for athletes to have unlimited transfers causing chaos all over the country with players transferring schools for money, and loyalty is now considered a lost wonder in college football.

“Personally, I think they should bring back the original rules back. Its getting way too out of hand and players should not be able to play for 7 different colleges in there college career,” explains Carter Yost(11).

“I think that NIL should not have an affect on where players end up playing. There needs to be more rules set to prevent this to bring back what college football used to be,” states Bryce Woodson(11).

The Transfer Portal has gone haywire and more rules need to be set in place to bring it back to what it originally was. NIL rules should also be put in place so athletes don’t transfer to a different school every year and bring back the lost wonder loyalty as a whole.