From the Outhouse to the Penthouse: CFB Transfer Portal Trnasformation Edition

College football news during bowl season was dominated in part by news of the transfer portal. Activity the initial day for athletes to enter the portal dwarfed the numbers of players entering the portal in previous years. Along with the flood of players dipping their toes in the portal came the predictable cry in traditional media and on social media that the transfer portal is killing college football as we know it.

My question is: "Is the transfer portal killing the game or just transforming the landscape to ready college football for the next era?"

Perhaps the answer can be found in the sudden emergence of two programs: TCU and Tulane.

In the case of TCU, we see a program that enjoyed limited success for years under the leadership of Gary Patterson. While not a bottom-feeder, TCU was a program under Patterson that gained the reputation as always a little short of really competing for Big 12 titles or being taken seriously on a national stage. For TCU, the pattern was predictable. Start the season with a string of wins only to see the momentum come to an end during league play. Outside of an expanded College Football Playoff giving TCU an opportunity in the post-season, it seemed unlikely that the Horned Frogs would ever rise to national prominence. That is until the entrance of Sonny Dykes.

Apparently, leadership at TCU believed that being a perennial also-ran was a glass ceiling that Patterson was unlikely to crack. Eight games into the 2021 season, Patterson was fired, and 2nd generation coach Sonny Dykes was tapped to take over the helm of the Horned Frogs. Dykes is a bit of an anomaly in college football: the son of a legendary coach who never played college football himself carved an unconventional path by being influenced by the Air Raid offenses of Hal Mumme and Mike Leach. Dykes time coaching under Mumme and Leach reflect a college football insider that is unafraid to forge new path to success.

Perhaps no greater evidence of Dykes unconventional approach exists than the meteoric rise of TCU Football from a 5-7 record and a 7th place finish in the Big 12 in 2021 to a place in Monday night's national title game against defending national champion Georgia. In a single season, Dykes has turned around the fortunes of a perennial middle-of-the-pack program and led them to the precipice of a national championship. One significant contributing factor is his deft use of the transfer portal.

Dykes transfer portal strategy after he was named TCU's head coach had two significant components: limit losses to the portal and fill key vacancies from the portal. The proof of his success in doing both is evidenced in TCU's path to the title game.

TCU lost fewer players than expected through Dykes personal investment in continuing to recruit the TCU players he inherited. He made efforts to visit in players' homes and to help them to see that although he didn't recruit them, they were still his guys if they chose to don the purple and silver. Little things made a huge difference including inviting players not going home to enjoy Easter with his family. The sincerity and hospitality Dykes showed players won many over, and TCU was spared the catastrophic losses common to many transitioning programs in the transfer portal era.

The other key to success was Dykes ability to fill key holes through the portal. TCU added key contributors like Josh Newton (ULM), Johnny Hodges (Navy), and Mark Perry (CU). Newton was an expected day-one contributor who proved to be a first-team all-conference corner. Hodges is another story. By his own admission, even then 3-9 Northwestern told Hodges he was not good enough to play at the D1 level. Dykes saw Hodges potential up close after a 14-tackle performance against his 2021 SMU squad. In the end, the unconventional Dykes plucked a diamond in the rough from the portal with Hodges amassing 66 regular season tackles and second team all-conference honors. Combining a personal, inviting manner with taking calculated risks, Sonny Dykes has used the portal to transform TCU into a contender.

Lest we think that an TCU's rise is an isolated incident, we only need to look as far as the Tulane Green Wave as another example of transfer portal success. The Willie Fritz-led squad approached the transfer portal differently signing 5-6 players from the portal each of the last 3 years and then a whopping 10 this season. Tulane used previous connections to coaches and program staff or ties to the New Orleans area as their pathways to most of their portal acquisitions. In fact, only kicker Valentino Ambrosio, Kanan Ray (CU), and Tylo Phillips (Lamar) came from outside those two paths.

With a profoundly different approach, Fritz led the Green Wave from a 2-10 (1-7 in conference) campaign in the 2021 regular season and AAC Championship and a Cotton Bowl victory over USC.

While dramatic improvements like these are not commonplace, they are notable for several reasons:

1. They demonstrate the power of the transfer portal to change the culture of a program immediately. Stories like these will only increase the pressure of first-year coaches to win now.

2. They fly in the face of criticisms of the portal being only about buying players through NIL. TCU has 2 players (Max Duggan and Kendre Miller) among the top 100 in NIL value according to On3 Sports. Miller and Duggan were freshmen signees. Tulane has no players in the NIL Top 100. Add to this the lack of success by Texas A&M after using NIL opportunities as a part of their recruiting pitch, and it would seem that money alone is not the issue that many want to make it.

3. They occurred at schools with significant entrance requirements. Both schools have excellent academic reputations with higher-than-the-norm entrance requirements that apply to football recruits. These academic standards did not prevent TCU or Tulane from upgrading their programs through the portal.

For years, we have heard complaints from pundits bemoaning the lack of parity in college football. In the last couple of years, the dire warnings about how NIL and the transfer portal are killing college football are too numerous to cite. Yet, on the most important weekend of post-season college football, we have two teams from the dozen involved in the Big 6 bowl games defying detractors' pearl-clutching complaints. Has the transfer portal changed the landscape of college football? Undoubtedly, yes, but so did the institution of the forward pass. Do limits and regulations need to be enacted to govern the transfer portal, especially in light of NIL? One hundred percent, they do, but just like the evolving rules that have changed the passing game since its inception, regulating and shaping the rules won't kill the game.

I for one believe that we are entering into an exciting new era of college football that will preserve what is special about the college game while carrying it well into the future. But, don't take my word for it. Just ask any TCU or Tulane fan how they are feeling today.

What do you think? I'd love to hear your feedback. Leave a comment below or over on Twitter at @tideworldorder and join the conversation.