College Football Is So Messed Up Right Now That A Player Is Taking A Recruiting Visit To His Own School

What are we doing here?

I probably don’t need to tell you how messed up things are in college football right now. With players commanding massive paydays through NIL and able to transfer schools at will, the once-great sport is now completely unrecognizable as it turns into a battle between high-dollar donors to buy the best players for their school every year.

A couple years ago, the NCAA eliminated the rule that players must sit out a year if they transfer, allowing for unlimited transfers for athletes. So these days, it’s not uncommon to see players transfer every year of their college career, always going where they can get the best NIL deal.

The problem is that the NCAA has to align the transfer portal window with schools’ academic calendar so that athletes who choose to transfer can get enrolled by the time the spring semester starts. This year, that window is from January 2 to January 16, which means the transfer portal closes before the College Football Playoff even wraps up with its championship game, which is on January 19.

As a result, players are forced to make a decision on transferring in many cases before their team’s season is even over, resulting in players opting out of playing in the postseason as they prepare to transfer schools.

It’s a mess. And fans are the ones who end up losing out.

Of course it’s great for schools with deep pockets who need to rebuild their football teams quickly after losing players to graduation or the portal. But one side effect is that teams are now forced to recruit not only transfers, but even their own players to stay at their school each year.

And apparently, that now means bringing your own players in for an official recruiting visit – even after they’ve already played at your school.

This mind-numbingly stupid scenario is playing out right now with Oklahoma State offensive lineman Grant Seagren, who declared back on November 30 that he would be entering the transfer portal following the firing of his coach, Mike Gundy.

But apparently new coach Eric Morris is doing his best to keep Seagren in Stillwater, because it was announced yesterday that the redshirt junior who started his career at Nebraska will be taking an official recruiting visit to…Oklahoma State.

Yes, the school he played for this season.

What are we even doing here?

It seems like as things continue to get dumber and dumber in the college football world, Congress is finally getting an appetite for getting involved and setting some guidelines on the free-for-all that has become NIL and the transfer portal. Just yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz called the situation a “crisis” and said that both Republicans and Democrats were interested in passing legislation to “save” college football:

Honestly, I don’t know what the answer is. Is it a cap on NIL? Should colleges start including liquidated damages clauses in NIL deals and require buyouts for players who leave? We’ve already seen at least one school sue a player who left over an NIL dispute, and there’s no doubt it won’t be the last if the current system remains in place.

Then there’s the issue of the transfer portal. Do you move it to the middle of the spring and force players to join their new school in the summer, and miss out on spring training with their new team? Or do you allow players to enter their new school in the middle of the academic calendar year?

It seems like no matter what, the facade of “amateur” sports is gone. These aren’t amateurs anymore: They’re professional athletes being paid for their services and making business decisions when choosing where to play. The problem with the system is that it’s still trying to treat players like amateurs while the players are free to act as professionals…and the result is a total circus.The post College Football Is So Messed Up Right Now That A Player Is Taking A Recruiting Visit To His Own School first appeared on Whiskey Riff.