Jerod Smalley commentary: It's time to fix the portal problem in college football

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- People love the concept of change.

They hate when change actually happens.

Change is hard, and it rarely happens without setbacks.

This period of change in college athletics is producing an entertaining, competitive product that is attractive to watch. In college football this year, it’s a wide-open, 12-team race to the national championship with no untouchable or dominant team. The playoff will make for great television.  Ohio State vs. Tennessee as a first-round playoff game is where fans win. We as consumers get more high-end football.

Even with paying out more money to the athletes, the “haves” in college sports are still having it pretty good. Meanwhile, the “have-less” schools are becoming more “less” than ever.

When people lobbied for college athletes to get a fair share of enormous profits, they were correct. Athletes who created the profitable product deserved more. But the wins have been tempered by a batch of unintended consequences that are creating an untenable situation, even for the richest schools.

Let’s start with December on the college football calendar. The best teams are prepping to play a conference championship game that first week of the month. Also happening that week? National signing day. And despite the relative free agency now in college sports, it still clearly boosts your program to sign the best class possible. Also happening in December? The opening of the transfer portal. Yes, players can make their plans for next year before this year is over. In fact, it will be more than a month between the portal opening and the final whistle of the national championship game in Atlanta.

How does a college coach and staff handle all of that happening in the same timeframe and make great decisions? When kids are announcing transfers from teams still competing for a national title, the system is broken. Penn State’s backup quarterback, Beau Pribula, announced Sunday he is leaving the team before its playoff run to find the best fit in the portal. It’s forced a “me” before “we” mentality, even when the majority of kids are team-first, coachable athletes.

I cannot think of a single reason why the first portal window opening cannot move until after the season is actually done. If players want to move on at anytime, they now have the freedom to do so. If a kid wants to play for five schools in five years … cool. Some athletes have no problem staying on track for graduation despite endlessly packing and unpacking moving boxes. Learn five school fight songs? Sure. But making schools recruit those players for while still competing for a title makes you wonder if any of these games even matter.

Without real leadership (and the NCAA provides little at this point) we are left with chaos. Schools and athletes have to make decisions that are best for them.

Initially, many of us believed the transfer portal would breathe new life into mid-major football. MAC, Sun Belt and American Athletic Conference schools could get access to better players from Power 4 programs and compete. That still happens, but the second a player shows promise, a Power 4 school is waiting with open-arms and a bag of cash.

The 2024 Marshall team (my alma mater) will be a case study in the dysfunction of modern college sports. Coach Charles Huff built a championship roster without many NIL resources and took the team to the Sun Belt Conference championship. That happened a week ago Saturday. Since then, Huff took a more lucrative offer from Southern Mississippi. Nearly 30 players entered the portal, including Marshall’s top three quarterbacks. Marshall had to back out of its bowl game vs. Army due to a lack of experienced players. The Herd also hired a new coach.

All that happened in seven days. Heads are spinning.

If any mid-major school builds a strong roster now, that team will get picked over like turkey scraps the day after Thanksgiving. But the power 4 schools are not at fault — they are simply doing what they need to build the best rosters possible. The pressure to win means it’s business, not personal.

Ohio State fans are benefiting greatly from the portal. Josh Simmons, Seth McLaughlin, Caleb Downs, Quinshon Judkins, Will Howard and others are on the roster because they were hired to play there. Most of the teams in the playoff feature key players who started their careers somewhere else and were then hired away.

College athletics stopped being “collegial” a long time ago, but in some ways the modern college landscape is more professional and cutthroat than the actual pro leagues.

Is it easy for fans to follow all those changes? No. But it could produce the most entertaining season of college football in the history of the sport.

Change is hard. And college sports are still far from perfect. But the biggest change that needs to happen now is, in fact, not hard. Move the portal window back until after the season is finished. Let players and their fans enjoy the seasons to the finish.

In the long run … the change will be worth it.