Deconstructing Brian Kelly's transfer portal comments | College Football Enquirer
Yahoo Sports national columnist Dan Wetzel and senior college football reporter Ross Dellenger are joined by Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde to discuss the LSU head coach's recent comments about the transfer portal and saying, "We're not in the market of buying players". Hear the full conversation on the “College Football Enquirer” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
Brian needs to rinse the Notre Dame out of himself here and get with the program in the sec.Come on, everyone is buying players, are they not?Come on.I think what's happening?There are two things happening here.Um And, and you hear this a lot from coaches around around college athletics when it comes to nil and it's that they do truly want at least a portion of the recruitment in the signing of a player to be about more than money.They do.They, they want it to be about the culture in the building in the on campus life in the history of the program, all that stuff, right?So I think part of that is true then there's this other part, right where it's, there's a transaction happening and everybody um me included probably you guys in a way is i in different parts of our life, it's, it's hard to accept change sometimes.And I think coaches are in the middle of a transform, in the middle of a transformative time in college athletics where change is happening at an insane rate and everybody's having a hard time accepting change.It's not that coaches don't want to have relationship based recruiting and to have culture in the locker room, you know, team first and all that sort of thing.I, I get that for sure, but getting players is also the bottom line and the way you're getting players right now is by whipping out the cash.I totally get what Brian Kelly is trying to say.I really do.If you listen to his whole thing, it's much more nuanced than what was flashing around the internet.Uh uh which was basically one quote we don't pay, we don't want to pay players, right?Or we don't wanna buy players, right?What Brian Kelly is saying is what every coach, what every organization, all right, including the pros.You may want to, you don't, no, no, no organization in free agency buy.What is a player that they don't think will fit into their, they are tea my problem with what Brian is saying is the implication that the players and, and that's why I don't wanna say their names and I'm gonna try to be better at not saying letting some of the the negativity that gets put on these kids, uh or these guys um to, to, to attach their name.Uh That's my goal this year but to pretend, oh, he only went to Oklahoma, he only went to Alabama.He only went here because he wanted to get, he doesn't want to be bought.Maybe he wanted the most money and he's completely dedicated to trying to improve.And that, that, that implication, there's some moral failing in this player because they just want to be bought just because they didn't buy what Brian Kelly was selling in terms of culture, but they did buy what Brent Venables was selling or what Klin de Boer was selling or whatever or hey, I, you know, to, to use a difference, I just wanna stay at Toledo.I don't wanna be bought, right.Uh Is that there, there is no moral, ethical ranking system here.If someone says I want the most money and I'm gonna give it all.