NCAA's transfer portal could make for a holiday nightmare for UF coaches and fans | Whitley

The NCAA’s transfer season opened at midnight Monday. In the first few hours, 238 quarterbacks, 197 receivers, 12 drummers drumming, eight maids a-milking and a partridge in a pear tree entered the portal.

By the time you read this, Trevor Etienne might have joined them. Or maybe not.

Such is the mystery, anxiety, hope and fear that comes with the transfer portal. It’s the least favorite time of the year for coaches, and that’s easy to see why.

For 30 days, they must feverishly try to keep their own players while attempting to pluck players from other schools. It’s sure not like the not-too-distant good old days when players were basically indentured servants from the moment they got a scholarship.

The NIL revolution is great for players, who can act like every other free-market laborer and look for better jobs. Nobody likes it more than quarterbacks, since the going rate is at least $1.5 million a year.

That largely explains why the QBs at Oklahoma, Ohio State, Duke, Oregon State, Miami, Washington State, UCLA, Mississippi State and many other schools entered the portal. A notable exception is Graham Mertz, who announced last week he’ll stick around Florida for one more season.

That was huge for UF, though the anxiety level is still at 11 on a scale of 1-10 due to Etienne. The highlight-reel running back is headed to Clemson, Michigan, Georgia, FSU or Miami, according to the internet. And we all know the internet is never wrong.

Money supposedly isn’t the big issue with Etienne. He wants to play for a winning team, and UF reportedly has had difficulty in that area lately.

Billy Napier has given Etienne his best sales pitch. But like every other coach, all he can do is hope some other Grinch doesn’t steal Christmas. For them, this holiday season can’t end soon enough …

Sayonara: Florida football transfer tracker: DL Chris McClellan latest to enter transfer portal

Political football: 'Corruption': Florida elected leaders blast decision to leave FSU out of football playoffs

Stud of the Week: FSU for winning the ACC title with a third-string QB and finishing 13-0. For that, the College Football Playoff selection committee awarded the Seminoles a nice pat on the head.

Dud of the Week: Sports Illustrated for naming Deion Sanders “Sportsperson of the Year.” Coach Prime set an NCAA record for hype, but SI apparently missed the part where Colorado finished 1-8 and the Kardashians stopped showing up on the sideline.

Dud II: Sports Illustrated, which was credibly accused of using AI-generated stories and posting under photos of fake writers, all of whom apparently voted for Sanders to be SI’s “Sportsperson of the Year.”

Dud III: The Detroit Pistons for finishing November with an 0-16 record. The good news is they’ll probably be named Sports Illustrated’s “Team of the Year.”…

Crime of the Week: A dead longhorn steer was dumped in front of an Oklahoma State frat house two days before OSU played Texas in the Big 12 title game. I guess we should just be thankful OSU wasn’t playing the West Virginia Mountaineers…

My Heisman ballot: 1. Jayden Daniels, 2. Bo Nix, 3. Connor Stalions …

Despite spending more than $1 billion to lure stars like Ronaldo and Neymar, the Saudi Pro League can’t draw sand flies. A crowd of 447 showed up last week for a game between Al-Wehda and Al-Khaleej. It was the lowest attendance at a sports event since the last University of Miami home game …

Update: Iowa’s NIL has offered the Hawkeyes’ entire offense $5 million if it will transfer to Michigan …

Non-Sports Note of the Week: An unidentified woman filed suit last week against Chopt Creative Salad Co., a restaurant in Mount Kisco, N.Y. She says the salad she ordered contained the finger of an employee who’d accidently cut off the digit earlier that day.

I wouldn’t order it, but you have to admit that’s a pretty creative salad …

Breaking News: Al-Miami is leaving the ACC to join the Saudi Pro League …

Mascot Redux: “Bulldogs” is the most popular team nickname, with 14 Division I schools using it. Florida is the only DI school with “Gators,” though it’s also used by Russell Sage College, Pine Manor College, Allegheny College, Notre Dame of Maryland U., and San Francisco State U.

Like UF, none had a winning football season this year. Unlike UF, none except Allegheny actually have a football team …

In its latest attempt to revive sales, Anheuser-Busch is rolling out a commercial featuring Peyton Manning tossing cans of Bud Light to patrons in a bar. I haven’t seen the ad, but I’m pretty sure Dylan Mulvaney will not be one of Manning’s receivers …

Full Disclosure: Gannett tried AI sportswriters last year. The project was aborted after USA Today reported Pine Manor College beat Kansas City in the Super Bowl …

This Just In: Sports Illustrated has named the Chopt Creative Finger Salad its 2023 “Salad of the Year.” …

That’s about all the space we have for this week’s Whitley’s Believe It or Not. We’ll try it again next week unless I get a huge NIL offer from the Al-Khaleej Gazette.

David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun's sports columnist. Contact him at dwhitley@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidEWhitley

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: NCAA transfer portal could ruin the holiday season at Florida