Before, student athletes could get paid for their name, image and likeness through NIL and leave school more than once without punishment through the transfer portal. There was a clearer line between college and professional sports. As athletes in the NFL would be able to get paid to play and sign contracts and when their contracts ended, they would become free agents. Now, athletes in college are able to hit the portal and change their teams every year. They’re allowed to be paid for their name, image and likeness in commercials and jersey sales, but now it allows for players to get paid from their schools.
The NIL and transfer portal allows athletes from lower D1 schools, FCS schools and D2 and D3 schools to transfer into the power four conferences. But as much as this helps those players, it makes it more difficult for players to come out of high school and go and play on power four conference teams. Kevin Minor, a former football player at Eastern Michigan and current social studies teacher at South, offered his opinion on this.
“Let’s say I’m at a Mid American Conference like Central Michigan and I’m all MAC Conference as a sophomore, and a school like Nebraska says, ‘Hey, sophomore, you were all conference last year and we need and we need a new third receiver,” Minor said. “You’re probably going to be much better than a Freshman.'”
In college football, there has always been a major difference between the power five conferences, which we and the group of five which was the lower conferences which included conferences like the American and Sun Belt. With the Pac 12 no longer existing, the landscape of the power four has changed. The SEC up until the start of NIL and the Transfer portal most of the time a SEC team either won the national championship or was in the national championship game. Through the last three years no SEC team has even been in the national championship and many people believe that is due to teams being allowed to pay players. Lucas Curtis ’27 offered his opinion on this.
“I also believe that it’s an equal opportunity now, because there’s some speculation that SEC schools can do that,” Curtis said.
With the transfer portal players can leave their school at any time they want to and this creates the problem of schools tampering with players. Recently Dabo Swinney, the Head Coach at Clemson, who was against the transfer portal and many got his players from High School but Swiney accused Pete Golding the head coach at Ole Miss in his press conference of still calling linebacker Luke Ferrelli to go to Ole Miss days after Ferrelli transferred to Clemson. Then just a few days after transferring to Clemson Ferrelli reentered the portal and transferred to Ole Miss. Luke Parent ’26 offered his opinion on this situation.
“I think just cut, clear and dry, that it is against the rules and it should not be allowed,” Parent said.
