Coach Prime had a strong message for the NCAA as the spring portal window begins

The sport of college football is in a dangerous state, as NIL and the transfer portal have taken over. Former Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava has made headlines recently after the school reportedly didn’t want to pay him $4 million to be the Volunteers’ signal caller while true freshmen are entering the transfer portal before they complete spring practices with their first school.

Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders delivered a strong message for the NCAA at his press conference leading up to Colorado’s Black & Gold Spring Game.

“NCAA, do something man,” Prime said Thursday. “Don’t just sit there on your hands and open them up so everybody can grease your darn palms and make a ton of money off everybody and don’t have nothing to say about nothing. I don’t understand that part.”

A year ago, the NCAA changed the rules regarding transfers. making it so athletes could enter the portal as many times as they want without penalty as long as they meet academic requirements set by the association. While this could be beneficial to some athletes who have to transfer to a different school for personal reasons, it is being abused by many athletes who don’t get playing time at the school they transfer to.

Rashad Amos, who was committed to the Buffaloes at one point, is a prime example of what’s wrong with the transfer portal. He recently entered the portal for the fourth time in his career after not getting the playing time he expected at Ole Miss.

The recent passing of the House Settlement could throw another wrench into the equation of college football, the money aspect on the NIL side of things could get even more out of hand. Every school who opts in will get a ‘salary cap’ of around $20 million that will be able to be distributed to the athletes. Iamaleava showed that the power is now with the athletes, as school who are desperate for top talent will pay top dollar prices to bring in those athletes. His holdout could be one of the first dominos to fall of a newer, dangerous era of college football.

However, the Colorado program wouldn’t be where it’s at today without the portal. Starting with all the ‘Louis’ luggage Prime brought over in 2022, a decent amount of the guys that have been brought in weren’t first-time transfers. If there were a cap on transfers, like how there used to be, Colorado’s roster would look a lot different than it currently does. Take Tyler Brown, for example. The offensive lineman was ineligible for the 2023 season because his transfer to CU wasn’t the first of his career, and he didn’t meet the exemption requirements that the old rules had in place. Incidents like that would be much more common in college football, but these new rules give the athletes almost all of the power.

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