The Sun Belt FR of the Year, Montrell Johnson is transferring to Florida.
Central Michigan's best offensive player is transferring.
2-time All-AAC DT Naylor transfers from Tulsa to Baylor.
Louisiana's top 2 OL are leaving.
Western KY losing its 1st-team All-conference CB
WKU is also losing their top returning WR, leaving for Penn St as well as their all-conference OT.
FIU's top OL goes to LSU after his FR season.
Marshall's QB is going to VT.
UTEP's leading WR the past 3 seasons left El Paso for Arizona.
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Put yourself in a G5 HC's shoes for a moment. You already had to worry about normal transfers of successful players, especially grad transfers. That's one thing. But when you have a great player, he can just leave whenever now. And if you have a young player who excels, he's vastly more likely to leave now, so you have nothing to build your program around. No foundation. No excitement for that big bump next year if these other pieces fit just right.
They're officially a minor league now. Yet we'll go on, for however long, living the lie that they aren't. Because....reasons.
I assume you mean best defensive player from CMU, or another school, as their best offensive player is definitely staying. And you mean Player from Tulsa.
I find the placement of G5 funny in the minds of people like yourself. You've told us these have nots are basically high school teams. You've said it's just and right that they never play for titles. You've said that if they face the best, they'll be reduced to weeping puddles, lamenting their lack of masculinity. But now ... now it's just a travesty that they don't want to be on those teams. That they want to play at a level where they win titles? Where they're not on "high school" teams? And those kids are totally in demand on that higher level? It's goofy.
I'll say this, I don't care about G5 HCs when it comes to the player angle. Their whole goal is to leave all these kids. That's the mission. But here's the thing, I actually care about G5 football. I watch a good bit of it. I respect it and think about it more than most. But it is second-tier and always will be. This sport is unfair. Lower level success means a rebuild when some P5 disaster needs an infusion of hope. Florida's not sharing resources with FIU. Even wins head up the food chain, as three games against G5s make P5 coaches look better. But the last stand is the players? Their coaches' jobs are to move to something bigger, but they're trapped or it's "gross"? The onus of a rebuild is on them? A guy like Player gives four years to a school, but it's wrong for him to want a bigger stage in his hometown.
They've always in practice been a minor league, a feeder system. They have moments when a few teams make a little noise, but the ceiling is always there. The beauty is, it'll keep on keeping on in that understated way it always did. For every kid who moves up, some will move down and suddenly star, and the product will keep being what it is.
Edit: "Before the transfer portal, it was akin to Yankees and Dodgers vs the Pirates or Orioles. That was bad enough."
You've told us the difference is high school and college teams, but now the Yankees-Pirates is that wide. This is ... strained at best.
