The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Heisman Finalists Announced & Explaining the Transfer Portal Madness

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt reacts to the Heisman Finalists being announced as LSU’s Jayden Daniels, Washington’s Michael Penix Jr, Oregon’s Bo Nix and Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr will all be making the trip to New York. He then dives into the news that over 1,000 players have already entered the Transfer Portal. Klatt considers the pros and cons of this era of immediate transfer eligibility. While he loves what it has provided many players, he also has some fixes to the system that he believes will help players and programs around the country achieve additional growth and stability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up today on the Joel Clad Show, we've got our Heisman finalists, and the portal is wild. College football has never been better. Interest has never been higher. Believe that we are at the dawn of the golden age of college football. It was an epic day of college football. It was one of those days where you fall in love with the sport all over again. What's up, everybody? It is the Joel Clatt Show.

I am Joel Glad. The show is presented by Hampton by Hilton. And yeah, here we are. We are, I guess, postseason now here, and we've got a lot to get into today on the program. First things, first, thank you to all of you who have been out there and following us and subscribing on YouTube. We actually hit 100,000 subscribers. So thank you to you, the fans out there that have really gravitated to this show. And in particular, on that side of things on the YouTube side.

And if you haven't watched the YouTube channel, go over there and check it out because we do have some content there that you don't get in the audio version of the podcast. Remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and wherever you get your podcast and then follow us on social media at Joel Clat Show wherever you like to social media. You can follow me personally. I like the social media on Twitter, formerly Twitter.

Every time I say that, I end up talking myself into saying something like, I'm on X. And that's obviously weird. So I always just say Twitter, but whatever. Okay, we do have a lot to get into because, yes, we've got Army Navy, and yes, there is a football game. But, but this week has turned into now in the modern college football, just the wild transfer portal central. We also have Heisman finalists. We have the playoff teams, which we obviously discussed on Monday, which that was, I'm still buzzing.

I was in Vegas the last couple of days at the National Football Foundation College Football Hall of Fame induction dinner. Incredible event, by the way. The National Football Foundation does an unbelievable job. And it's a couple of days with basically every single person from the industry there in terms of college football. Lots of coaches, lots of athletic directors, people within the sport. And all anyone could talk about was just like, well, what is your thought about the

playoff? What was your thought about the playoff? What do you think? What do you think? And the opinions are all over the place. There are people that are just staunchly Florida State got absolutely hosed. And then there are people that like, hey, that really sucks for them. But we probably have a better playoff now because of the Jordan Travis injury. So it was a wild couple of days in Las Vegas.

By the way, congratulations to all the Hall of Fame induction class this year, including Tim Tebow, Reggie Bush, among others. And they also give out the Campbell Trophy. The Campbell Trophy is kind of the academic Heisman. Bo Nix ended up winning the Campbell Trophy. So congratulations to Bo Nix quarterback at Oregon. Speaking of Bo Nix, and let's get started on today's content. Heisman finalists were announced.

We've got four finalists. You know what I've always said? I think that we should always have at least four finalists. I think it should probably just be five, the top five vote getters. I don't care if the fifth guy is miles behind the winner. I think that being a Heisman finalist is important. I've always said this, and so we should have a select number that doesn't vary from year to year.

As it is, we do vary it from year to year based on the vote and how close the players are in terms of the voting, and we have four this year. So Jaden Daniels from LSU, no surprise there. Michael Pennix Jr. from Washington, no surprise. Bo Nicks, Oregon, obviously. And then Marvin Harrison, Jr., the wide receiver from. Ohio State. All of these guys are clearly

deserving. And rather than just going through and debating the merits of each player, which you can, by the way, and that I guess would be interesting, I immediately saw that. And I'm like, man, in this week in which we've got portal extravaganza, and it seems

like every single player in college football is at least flirting with the transfer portal, here we are trying to establish the most outstanding player in the sport. and give him the most prestigious individual honor in American sports, the Heisman Trophy, and three of these guys are transfers, right? And it's just, it jumped out to me how impactful transfers have been in college football.

You go back. Last year's winner was Caleb Williams, transfer. Obviously, the couple of Bama winners are not in that boat, but then you've got Joe Burrow, Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray. Modern college football in so many ways has been shaped and is a lot of. about the transfer player. And obviously these finalists are evidence of that, three of the four being transfers.

And it just got me thinking, and this is what I wanted to talk about today. I want to talk about the transfer era and not just the portal, but also the rule about the transfer. Is it good? Is it beneficial? Where are there adjustments that can be made in order to make not only it better for the player,

but also for the program. I think to me that's more interesting and why you would come to a show like this is to figure out all of those details about the sport. It's something that I think is very interesting. So first things first, I love the transfer era of college football. I think it's provided remarkable opportunity for players

from quarterbacks, which are obvious, to any position player. I think that in life, guys can make mistakes clearly and make decisions that they feel like were right at the time. I'm not talking about drastic mistakes. I'm just saying, like, you choose a school, and it ends up being like, well, you know what, this wasn't the right fit for me. It wasn't the right choice. And then having the autonomy and the agency to be able to move and better your fit and better your situation, I think has been remarkable for the sport in so many ways. It's obvious from the players' perspective, like I just discussed there,

but it's also from the program's perspective. Think of what's happened now in college football. You can make an argument that this season, what we just experienced with so many quality teams, was in large part due to the transfer portal. You see, in high school recruiting, what we were getting and what the playoff had given us, because you could only really define four teams as successful in any given year,

is we're starting to see the talent really coalesce at a small number of places in the country. It's basically Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, and then maybe, I know this is kind of funny about like Texas A&M. And one of these is not like the other. I understand that. But the transfer era has now allowed that talent to disperse. You know, if the fit is not correct at those places, it's allowed the talent to disperse. And I think that we have more good teams, maybe less great teams, but more good teams than we did 510, 15 years ago. That's been great for the sport.

Now teams can fill holes, build rosters, and play and better themselves season in and season out. rather than on a three and four year rolling basis, you could really transform your roster in a single year. We've seen coaches have more success in their first year than we have throughout the history, generally speaking, in college football. It's an unprecedented time, and it's been a great time. The transfer era has been awesome for college football.

I am totally in favor of it. I think that from a program's perspective, you get hope, you can fill, the roster. You get you get to fill the roster with known commodities. Players get autonomy and mobility and they can correct a mistake. They can find opportunity and get on the field. Now, this era is largely because of the 2021 rule change in which you get a one, one-time transfer, basically exception. So before that, it's important that we just kind of keep all of it in context. In order to transfer free, you would either have to be a graduate or you would

have to apply for a hardship waiver. Now, a lot of people were applying for hardship waivers and getting them because the schools didn't want to fight against it. So what ended up happening is there was a lot of guys that were transferring without penalty and then all of a sudden one would be deemed like ineligible by the NCAA. And the inconsistency was maddening for fans and programs alike. And so all of a sudden here comes this rule. Players get more autonomy and now they can move.

And so since the rule changed, now you can really transfer freely three different ways. One time, anytime you want, graduate, even if you've already transferred before, or apply for a hardship waiver for anything along those lines. Now, what that rule has done, though, as great as it's been, and as I'm going to continue to say, I'm highly in favor of it, what it's started to do now as we move forward from 2021, 2021, 2022, now 23, we're three years in here. and now what we're starting to realize is like, okay, this one-time transfer rule is a little bit like dessert. It's awesome. But it's probably a bit overused.

I can't have it all the time. I can't have four desserts and 30 minutes. And so all of a sudden, I'm starting to sit back and think to myself like, okay, hold on a second. It's this is like being a parent, everything in moderation. If unchecked, I do think that there are some downsides to what's going on right now in terms of the portal. And I think that that can be fair. And let me point out for a moment that this conversation in a lot of ways is similar to like a draft evaluation. You know, like so for instance, or even a Heisman, let's even call it like a Heisman.

Let's say you make an argument for one of the, the players. Let's say I'm making an argument for Jaden Daniels. Well, then in that argument, anybody who wants Michael Pinnock's or Bo Nix or Marvin Harrison immediately things are like, well, why do you hate Michael Pinnock's? I don't. I don't hate Michael Pinnis. I was actually just making an argument for Jaden Daniels or vice versa. Let's say you're trying to make an argument for Michael Pinnock. And people are like, why do you hate Jaden Daniels? Oh my gosh, you always hate the SEC. I don't hate Jaden Daniels at all. And in a lot of ways, this transfer argument acts in the same way.

If you're talking about the mechanisms of the transfer portal and some of the downsides of what's going on right now, people automatically think like, well, why don't you like the fact that these players can move around? I do. I love the players moving around. I think, again, it is ushering in, as I say in the open of this show, kind of a golden age of college football. we're seeing players play longer in our sports, stay longer. That's a good thing. They get opportunities. Now, that doesn't mean that the mechanism isn't broken in some ways. And I think both can be true.

All right. So let's take a look at that. And let's take a look at the mechanism. Let's take a look at where we're at right now, in particular this week, when the portal is just like jumping off, man. It's crazy. There's been a thousand players jumping the portal since it opened after the season. And what ends up happening now is that the timing of college football is converging as if it's traffic on the 405.

It's like we're shutting down five lanes and just getting into one lane and we're just going to jam all the traffic into one lane. It's too much. The calendar is overwhelmed right now. So nobody can be effective. Coaches can't be effective. Players can't be effective. administrators can't be effective because too much is going on. And what we have right now is we're trying to sign high school players to the early signing day.

The portal is open and those trip players are trying to commit. Coaching Carousel is going on actively. We've got awards season, like I was just in Vegas for award season. So we're trying to put a bow on the season. Some teams are done. Other teams are not. They're going to bowl games. Other teams are in the playoff.

And yet we're trying to like jam all of this in there. I'm seeing these coaches out there, whether it's Dan Lannning from Oregon or Steve Sarkesian from Texas. And I look at them and they look like ghosts because it's like they're swamped and they can't be effective. They can't be effective with their current roster and they can't be effective with their future roster at all. Why?

Because the mechanism is broken. That doesn't mean that transfer portal doesn't have a place. It just means that we got to fix the calendar. That's one of the things. You know, decisions in this moment, I think, are made with either incorrect or incomplete information. And that's not good for anybody. That's not good for the programs, clearly. And it's not good for the players.

You see, I'm a parent, as I'm sure a lot of you are as well. There are a lot of great things that I want my kids to have or partake in. but that doesn't mean that they get to have all those great things and partake in all of those cool things all the time, right? Because that wouldn't be healthy for them. There's got to be a balance. And I'm talking about where is our balance. So let's talk about that a little bit and talk about, you know,

what we could do. And maybe a couple of more of the downsides. A couple of these players that are in the transfer player, our portal, are in there for a, second time. Dylan Gabriel is one of them. Hot commodity, obviously. And a lot of, why wouldn't he be? And I love it. Teams are vying for Dylan Gabriel's services. Cam Ward is another one. These guys have already played at two schools and now they're going to play at a third. Okay. Well, step back from that for just a moment. And you'll see that when you add the element of NIL and the ability, and the

ability of collectives to basically pay players, offer them NIL deals. Here's what happens. We've gone from no autonomy for the player, can't monetize their own name image and likeness, have no ability to move around outside of the recent graduate exception or maybe applying for a hardship, which used to be just an incredibly high bar to get over. And so here we are now, and we've swung the pendulum back. Okay. And guess where we're at now? Now we're in a setting where a player really has three bites at the free agency Apple in five years.

So he's going to come out as a high school player and basically be bid on by all these collectives and teams. How much are they willing to pay him in NIL? Then, at any moment, he can leave. Boom. Go on. Guess what he is now? He's in the portal, and he is a free agent. And now he is a commodity that can be bid on in the portal. So that's his second opportunity at basically free agency. Then he can graduate, get his degree, and move again. freely wherever he wants. That's a third bite at the free agency Apple in five years. But here's the kicker.

You might be thinking like, so? Okay, fine. That's fair enough. But it can happen at any moment. And because it can happen at any moment, my fear is that he, the player, is not going to be developed to his fullest potential by any of the places that vie for his,

services. And the reason is, is that he can up and leave at any moment. So there's no reciprocation here, okay? There's not a two-way agreement here. So what is the program's incentive to pour into the development of that player, whether that's on the field, whether that's as a person or physically, you know, from a health perspective, a mental health perspective, or even in the wait room. What's the incentive there for these programs? If that player can leave at any moment, what is the incentive? And because of that, now we've got a whole slew of players that are not being developed on the field. So I believe that they're not reaching their potential. They're not going through anything hard from an adversity standpoint. So they're not growing as young men.

because let's face it, any of us who are a little bit older, we know that we grew the most as men or as adults, ladies out there, as adults, when we went through something hard. And then we were forced to address something hard in our life. And we came through it. That's when the most growth happens. That's not happening in college football anymore.

Because the autonomy happens whenever they want. whenever they want. I'm fearful that what we're having is what we're creating here is a sport full of talented athletes that are not developed as football players. Because again, they're not there for enough time, long enough period of time to be developed. Okay. And again, I'm talking about as people and physically as well as players, in particular quarterbacks.

it takes two or three years to develop as a quarterback. It takes that within your system to learn the game, to learn the sport. And now we just got guys just like freely going all over the place. And they're just rent to players for a year. And I just wondered to myself like, well, is this really actually good for the players themselves? And I would argue that, again, like dessert, too much of a good thing can at times be bad for you. Now before I start talking about some fixes, just remember it is that time of year, my favorite time of year. It is playoff time.

And as you know, I take it seriously. So when I'm traveling on the road to watch my favorite teams, I can't risk calling the wrong play with where I stay, wherever I go. I know that I can count on Hampton by Hilton. I can depend on their comfortable rooms, their warm and friendly service, and their free hot breakfast is a game changer. So whether you're cheering on your team from the stands or never leaving the tailgate, Hampton by Hilton will always give you that win. Okay, so what do we need to do? What should we do?

What's the fix, Joel, okay? You've told me about the problems. Well, what's the fix? Well, here's the fix. We got to fix two parts of this whole transfer thing. We got to fix the timing or the calendar as well as the supply side. Okay, so the pool of play. And this is important. This is very important. In order to maintain some of the things that are so, I say, inherently good about our sport and about developing and about overcoming obstacles and about developing as a player, as well as retaining agency and autonomy over your own life and career, I think that we need some parameters.

all right. It's obvious to me that the calendar needs to be fixed. We need to separate out when high school players make their decision and when transfer players make their decision. We should not be doing that at the same time. That fix needs to happen immediately. I personally don't think that we need an early signing day. We don't. Either move it way before the season or move it after the holiday. And that would be fine for me. Everyone could still enroll early if they want to. You can still commit this extra like one month basically that we give them two months used to be early February. I just have no idea why we now need to be in the portal and in high school recruiting at the same

time. I think it breeds terrible decisions, which then breeds more transferring because you make decisions based on incomplete information about the roster and about the makeup of that school. And then you get there and you realize, hey, this wasn't what I thought it was. Why? Because it was a mess when I decided to sign here and make this decision, and then they end up transferring and were right in this same kind of wheel and mess that I was just talking about of lack of a development and commitment towards a school. Okay. So what does that look like? Well, you separate out high school recruiting and transfer portal. I think that that's a must. Again, and the key part of this is that you allow for better decisions. So this is not just,

oh, man, the coaches are going to breathe a lot better and sleep better at night. Yeah, that might be the but this is mostly for the player. This is a protection for the player so that he can make the best decision he can possibly make with all the information at his fingertips. Then we get to the pool, the supply side of college football, okay? These players, and this is a little bit harder. And the reason is because I believe we need to claw back some of the freedoms that we gave the players. I just told you earlier that it went from two ways to transfer, and then in 2021, now there's three ways to transfer.

I think we should go back to two ways to transfer. I don't believe that we need to have a free one-time exception and you can transfer any time that you're a graduate. I think that it should just be you get one transfer, okay? And it doesn't matter about the graduation. It's just you get one time to transfer. Now, if there's a hardship, a coaching change, or something medically, mental health, that's a different story. So again, two of the three, I want a one-time transfer and I want a hardship waiver. I just don't think that we need the third way.

We don't need players having three bites at the free agency Apple in five years. I just don't believe that that benefits anybody. Okay, now you could say, well, no, it definitely benefits the player. Well, not exactly because, again, too much dessert in a short period of time is a bad thing. We need to look out for the development of both the person and the player to some extent, while allowing them the autonomy and freedom to go make NIL, monetize their name, image, and likeness, and have some freedom of where they should be playing, and find those opportunities on the field. So what would that look like?

Well, I do think that we should move it down to two ways to transfer. And then I think that there should be some level of commitment similar to what the graduation transfer was, but I think it should be shorter. Think of, I don't know, commit to like 20 months. If you're assigning, if you're committing as a high school player, I think there should be 20, 24 month commitment where you cannot transfer within those first few months unless there's an extenuating circumstance like a hardship waiver. okay. And this would allow the player to start to be developed. And the program would be incentivized

because they knew like, hey, this guy is going to be here. So if we pour into him, maybe we can push him past these areas in which he struggles in his first 24 months, and maybe we can retain him. We can develop him. We're going to actually get a return on the investment of pouring into him physically. mentally and as a player, it would also narrow the focus of everybody in college football as to who can actually transfer, which would mean that you would have a cleaner idea of what rosters looked like around the country. Because you would know like, okay, he's eligible to transfer, he's not.

What does that quarterback room look like? What does that running back room look like? Again, more complete information. It wouldn't be just a total free-for-all. I think that that would be better for the player. They would be making better decisions for themselves, for their family, and for the opportunities that they would have on the field. Again, a little bit of dessert is great.

A lot of it at once is not. We need some parameters, which leads us then to what came up this week from Charlie Baker. Okay? Charlie Baker, the new head of the NCAA, basically proposed a new subdivision, a new division of college football, which would allow Division I schools for the first time to pay their athletes in ways that are not tied to educational resources.

All right? A lot of language to just basically say, he wants to create a new subdivision that would allow the schools to enter into essentially employment contracts with their players. And a lot of people are like, good, great, all right, here we go. I'm one of them. And the reason is, is because we already do this. We already do this.

Again, this would just be changing the language of what's already happening. You really think that these players aren't, quote, quote, unquote, employees of the schools? What do you think collectives are? They tweet like once for their name image and likeness collective dollars. The schools hire people who are going out and raising this money. Okay? They are attached.

They work together. It is their money. Why? Because they're going after the same donors that they would go after for regular donations to the, quote, program. It's the same pool of money. All right. So we're doing this already. There's no reason not to call it what it is, which is what Charlie Baker is basically

proposing. And once you do that, here's the kicker. And then this is where it gets good. You can start to collectively bargain with that body of players. So once we stop calling collective dollars NIL, which they aren't, let's be real honest, and we actually call it what it is, which is the programs paying the players, then we can collectively bargain with that group of players, whether it's the female athletes or the male athletes. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter which sport. And once we can collectively bargain, now we can set these guardrails that make dessert great again. That's what I'm talking about. Now we're not eating chocolate cake four times a day. Okay. And all the things that are, I would say, the unintended poor consequences,

even to the players of this freedom and autonomy, can get limited in a way where they still have those opportunities. They still get paid. They still monetize their name image and likeness. They still find their opportunities elsewhere via their one-time transfer, and yet they can also get through hard things. They can make information and make decisions based on information that is complete. Again, I don't see the downside in this. And I hope you're following along. what Charlie Baker is proposing is already going on. We just don't define it as such. Defining collective dollars for players as NIL,

name, image, and likeness is a lie. They don't do anything for those dollars. Schools are already paying players. It's already happening. Let's call it that so that we can enter into a collectively bargained agreement that will benefit, not hinder, but benefit both sides. To me, it's very clear. The portal and NIL have been a great addition to college football, a great addition, and I'm highly in favor of both. But like dessert for my 11, 9, and 6-year-old, as much as they want it, they don't get it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

we save it to be special so that it doesn't ruin our health. It's the same thing with NIL. It's the same thing with Transfer Portal. We can do this, folks. College football can do this and put the guardrails on and put the limitations on that will benefit everybody. Programs will benefit. Coaches will benefit.

Players will benefit. Everybody will benefit. And I think that that ultimately is the goal. It's the goal of everybody involved. All right. that's going to do it for today. We'll be back next week with a breakdown of who won the Heisman trophy. We'll talk about Army Navy a little bit in the aftermath of that game.

And continue to talk about all things college football as we plunge toward bowl season. We've got the Holiday Bowl set. We've got Louisville and USC. Gus, Jenny, and I will be calling that game on December 27th. So I'm excited for that. And then obviously the playoff and we'll talk a lot about the playoff as we move forward. Listen, thank you so much for being a part of this program for following us. Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

Remember to subscribe on the YouTube channel. And remember to follow us on social media wherever you like to social media at Joel Clatchio. Have a great week, everybody, and we'll see you next time.