FanPost

A Pandemic of Transfers?


I don't really know if transfers are higher this year than usual - haven't been keeping track - but it sure seems like it. Andit feels unusual to see a CJ Bolar who would project to be one of the top two or three players at his position packing his bags. This is not a case of an underachieving player buried on the depth chart; a small fish looking for a smaller pond.

On the basis that the covid-19 pandemic is affecting everything, I started wondering what effect quarantine might have on players' transfer decisions.
I work in health care - OB, not infectious disease, so it's not like these thoughts were stolen from Anthony Fauci's notebook - but for what it's worth, I do not expect to have a college football season this Fall. I don't expect to be on full lockdown, either. It seems most likely that we will wind up relaxing restrictions on lower risk activities relatively soon and higher risk activities later.

So what's low risk? Basically, anything that does not involve susceptible groups, large numbers of people, distant travel, or close contact. We might have regionally tailored restrictions based on disease activity in a given area, so you might throw "epidemiologically low risk communities" on the Low Risk List.
But taking 85 college aged men, put them on a bus or a plane to travel somewhere so they can breathe heavily and sweat all over another 85 other college aged men from a different region? Pack tens of thousands of people into a stadium to watch this highly infectious mass petri dish fulminate? And how are you going to handle a game against Syracuse when NY has different contact rules than TN?
Nope. Sorry to say, but college football will be one of the last activities we re-introduce.

If I'm right and there is no college football this Fall, it's open season for transfers. Under normal circumstances, having to sit out a season is the only meaningful disincentive to transfer. If the 2020 season doesn't happen, there is zero disincentive to transfer. A player would almost have to be crazy not to enter the portal. Put your name out there, see what interest you get, and if you get an offer you like move on to greener pastures. But surely, you say, putting his name in the portal would be seen as disloyalty by the coaching staff, and might affect the player's chances if he doesn't move on? I'm guessing by 2021 Fall practice, the coaches find a way to get over it.

I don't see a downside in this scenario. A player putting his name in the transfer portal at this time is a no-lose move.

If I'm right, maybe we'll get some transfers too. Kind of like collegiate free agency?

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