NIU Football Coach, Thomas Hammock, Goes OFF On The Transfer Portal & NIL In College Athletics: “Don’t Lose Focus On The Long Term”

The rare college football presser that turned into an impassioned sermon.

History will look back and see two different versions of college football: the era where players played for their school, and the era where players played for money. The Name, Image and Likeness era was ushered in at break neck speed, and I’d argue that even the biggest fans of the sport still don’t fully understand what’s going on.

Though one thing that college football fans do have a good grasp on is the transfer portal, which has been just as detrimental to the state of college athletics as NIL has in the past couple of years. For those that aren’t familiar, the transfer portal is a digital platform that allows for student-athletes to make it known to other universities that they are open to transferring from their respective institutions.

There used to be a rule that required student-athletes to sit out a year if they transferred to another school, but that has since been removed as a requirement. In this day and age of college athletics, especially with the introduction of NIL (Name, Image & Likeness) opportunities, some are calling the transfer landscape and athletics in general as the “wild west.”

Northern Illinois University’s head football coach Thomas Hammock certainly feels that way about it.

Earlier today, Hammock was speaking to the media when the topic of the transfer portal came up. And it was as if he had been waiting all of his life, or at the very least his coaching career, to be tossed that question. He first got into a story that he apparently told his team not too long ago:

“I told our team the other day, ‘We lost all these guys, let’s see who plays.’ It’s all good when people put on Twitter, ‘All glory to God, I’m going in the transfer portal.’ Let’s see if they play. How many of them guys are gonna play? Or travel or get snaps?”

The head coach of the Huskies telling it how it is.

And he’s basically just trying to warn his players of the illusion of the transfer portal. In rare circumstances, a talented player will enter into the portal and end up in a better situation. But most of the time, football players that declare themselves as a transfer portal-er (just made that term up) downgrade team, or don’t find a new team at all.

Coach Hammock went on to say that college football shouldn’t be about how much playing time you get, or how much you are paid to play football. In his opinion, there are more important things that athletes should be taking away from their four-to-five years in college:

“I enjoyed my college experience. I didn’t get one dime. But the lessons I learned were more valuable than any money you can ever pay me. And I appreciate that, because that is long term. People are losing (sight) of the fact that this is short term…

This is a transition from being a kid to a grown up, and I hope people don’t lose focus of that… if you are going to college to get a couple of dollars (playing sports), you might as well go get a job.”

Love that the NIU head coach just got up at the podium today and decided to tell the world how he really feels.

Hammock stuck his landing by saying that other than learning valuable life skills, the most important thing about going to college – whether you are playing football while you are there or not – is getting a degree. He’s personally saddened to see that recruiting has basically become a bidding war, and student-athletes choosing which school to attend basically comes down to who can pay the most.

Coach Hammock believes modern day student-athletes (and their parents) are missing the entire point:

“Learn the lessons that you need to learn to be successful in life for the next 40 to 50 years of your life. I would do it again for free. For free. Because of the things I learned. That’s why I’m standing here today, because of what I learned in college. Not because of how much somebody gave me.”