2025 Transfer Portal/Tampering Thread

[utee94]

I'm not sure Miami can afford $6M for one QB.

But Oregon can.

[CatsbyAZ]

Beck to Miami(FL).

Good for Carson Beck if maxing an NIL makes him more/year than a rookie contract. Most of the talking points were how this will be trend for elite, experienced QBs, like Carson Beck and Quinn Ewers, who can carry an offense but might not be a guarantee for an NFL career. Carson Beck has Josh Rosen 2.0 written all over him.

As for Miami, yes Carson Beck will carry their offense, but after witnessing how badly the Canes crashed down the stretch while fielding a Heisman caliber QB, I don't believe Carson Beck raises Miami's ceiling. Mario Cristobal is still on the sideline getting outcoached and standing idly by, helplessly witnessing a defensive collapse every other game (Miami's Scoring Defense ranked 70th nationally, but more notably gave up more than 30 points 6 times).

Mario Cristobal has never progressed past his initial head coaching stage of leaning on talent advantages, which puts a season at the mercy of having significant talent advantages across a full schedule to consistently win. As younger coaches this is how Sarkisian and Kiffin were winning at TN/USC and Washington/USC. And despite talent advantages they lost a number of games where they were outcoached by teams with less talented rosters. Ultimately this is how Kiffin flamed out at USC and Sarkisian's W/L record at Washington was 34-29.

Both coaches were able to grow beyond these first stage limitations through their time as assistants under Nick Saban in Tuscaloosa, where they witnessed, learned, and learned how to emphasis player development above all. And it shows at Ole Miss and Texas how much they've grown into more complete head coaches.

Speaking of time in Tuscaloosa, Mario Cristobal's results as a head coach at FIU from 2007-12 were bad, posting a bad record of 27-47, before Alabama hired him as an OL/TE coach from 2013-2016. This parlayed into Oregon hiring Cristobal, and certainly he learned a lot in Tuscaloosa, but it doesn't seem enough to carry Miami's fast starts for the length of a season.

In 2023, Miami started 4-0 and reached a #20 ranking before finishing 7-6. This past season, Miami started 9-0 and reached a #4 ranking before finishing 10-3. As has been stated on this board before, a sign of good coaching is whether a team plays better as the season moves along. Cristobal's teams get worse, highlighted by an inexplicably disorganized defense to end Miami's season.

Looking to next season, Miami has a tougher September, hosting Notre Dame and what's expected to be a stronger Florida team.

[bayareabadger]

That is some bad spending, but I’m happy the kid is getting it. 

I don’t think it’ll be a very happy season for them, but sometimes this sport aligns in a way that isn’t there to make me happy.

(I do think the split between making more money and maybe going down a level for some developmental success is an interesting aspect of the new arrangement)

[betarhoalphadelta]

So...

How do we actually define "tampering" at this point? 

I.e., I think we know that if anyone from a university directly contacts any student-athlete from another school who isn't in the transfer portal, that's outright tampering. Bright line. 

Now, with NIL, many of these student-athletes will have agents. Agents exist to handle the business relationships. That said, if anyone from a university directly contacts any student-athlete's agent, I have to think that's also a bright line tampering issue. 

Beyond that, however, we also have university affiliated(?) NIL collectives. While in many cases these might be "arms-length" relationships, where the collective is not formally affiliated with the university, I think these collectives are not just acting completely on their own free will in trying to broker relationships with players unless they think said players would actually be targeted by the coaching staff. So if an NIL collective contacts a student-athlete's agent, I would still call that tampering. However, the line starts to get blurry. 

But it can get even more blurry. Let's say Phil Knight is targeting a star student-athlete, completely unknown to the University of Oregon and their athletic department and coaching staff. And Phil (or his minions) contacts a student-athlete's agent and says "hey, there's a big bag if your player enters the transfer portal--get him to do that and we'll start talking about how big that bag is", how blurry has that line gotten? Is this still tampering? 

It's tampering if a school contacts a student-athlete from another school who isn't in the transfer portal. But how far removed from that bright line do we have to get before it's not tampering? 

[Honestbuckeye]

Bingo.   No way to police it.   

[FearlessF]

boosters, however the NCAA defines a booster, contacting a student-athlete is tampering

[847badgerfan]

Boosters are representatives of the University, by NCAA rules.

[OrangeAfroMan]

 by NCAA rules.

This is the most meaningless phrase I can fathom right now.  

[847badgerfan]

Pretty much.

[utee94]

I said it pages ago, there's no longer any such thing as "tampering."  It's an outmoded concept, an anachronism in today's college game.

And you can assume at this point that schools (or their boosters) have no need of contacting players directly.  The players all have agents, and any decent agent is going to shop his client at regular intervals.

[betarhoalphadelta]

I said it pages ago, there's no longer any such thing as "tampering."  It's an outmoded concept, an anachronism in today's college game.

And you can assume at this point that schools (or their boosters) have no need of contacting players directly.  The players all have agents, and any decent agent is going to shop his client at regular intervals.

Excellent point.

If a school contacts a student-athlete (or his agent) with the player not in the portal, that's tampering. What if the agent contacts the school? Is it still tampering?

Wouldn't shock me a bit if a lot of these high-profile allegations of "tampering" is the agent calling and the school saying "yeah, I suppose we could put together a nice package if your client enters the portal", and then the offending school is made out to be the bad guy.