Advertisement

Lincoln Riley on the Transfer Portal: ‘I think at some point we’ll have to put in some guardrails’

john williams
·4 min read
3

There hasn’t been a head coach in college football that has benefitted from the transfer portal as much as former Oklahoma Sooners head coach Lincoln Riley. Why, as recently as Monday, Riley landed the top quarterback in the transfer portal in Caleb Williams.

Recruiting Williams to USC comes after benefitting greatly from getting Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, and Jalen Hurts in the portal. And yet, he was on ESPN talking about how the transfer portal needs some overhaul.

Speaking to the ESPN crew, Riley said:

Obviously this has changed really the way that college football operates. I think at some point we’ll have to put in some guardrails. Some ways to ensure when this can happen, when this cant happen so that players, staffs, all that are a little bit more on the same page. Right now it’s so open ended that it’s I think it’s difficult for players, difficult for coaches, difficult to build rosters. You try to project for the future. I think kind of the ill effects of that when you start looking at the high school athlete and how many of these scholarships are actually going to players in high school is concerning. I think so much has changed and there’s a lot of really good people and smart people in college football. I think a lot of those people need to get together as we have a chance to assess all that’s happened and I think we can put together a plan that gives everyone the flexibility that they want but also maintains the integrity of building a roster and being able to use all the different channels in a positive way. – Riley to ESPN College Football

This isn’t to criticize how Lincoln Riley goes about building his squad. The Oklahoma Sooners benefitted from his ability to draw players through the transfer portal. He’s operated under the rules in the portal and done a great job at adding talent. However, the timing feels incredibly convenient after he built his career through the transfer portal and landed Caleb Williams just a day ago via the portal.

Does the transfer portal, and NIL, need some adjustments? Perhaps. But to hear it from Riley seems a bit disingenuous considering his history as a head coach.

Yes, he mentions wanting to maintain the freedom that college players currently enjoy, but that’s also what he wants to put guardrails on. The guardrails that don’t exist for coaches. One could argue that the lack of restriction on coach movement in college football is as much to blame for the wild wild west of the transfer portal as anything.

A lot of players are entering the portal because the coaches they committed to play for are leaving unexpectedly, putting players on uneven footing as they assess their college football futures. That’s the exact reason that Caleb Williams, Mario Williams, and Latrell McCutchin ended up leaving OU. The coaching turnover.

College coaches can up and leave in the middle of contracts without any repercussions. We saw Riley, Brian Kelly, and Mario Cristobal all make what could be considered lateral moves, and there was nothing their previous school could do about it. They don’t have to sit out a year. They get to pick right up at their next spot. And yet, when the players enter the transfer portal, it’s a problem for the coaches.

Still, it’s strange to hear Lincoln Riley talk about the transfer portal like it needs any kind of regulation. It reveals a real lack of self-awareness.

It would be one thing if Dabo Swinney talked about regulating the transfer portal. Swinney’s been adamant against the use of the portal in his years at Clemson. But for someone like Riley to speak of regulating the transfer portal is rich.

Under Brent Venables, the Oklahoma Sooners have been beneficiaries of the transfer portal in 2022. They landed Dillon Gabriel, Jeffrey Johnson, Jonah Laulu, McKade Mettauer, and a host of other players that could help them. But Venables isn’t going on ESPN to talk about how it’s a problem that needs to be fixed after he built his career through the portal.

We’ll see if any changes or regulations get put into place on the transfer portal. But it would be surprising to see a guy like Lincoln Riley turn against the very thing that’s helped establish him as one of the best coaches in college football.

Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. Let us know your thoughts, comment on this story below. Join the conversation today.

List

Oklahoma Sooners 2022 transfer portal tracker