The new College transfer rule is an absolute game-changer, however, college coaches live each day in fear that their star player is being approached from outside voices. It’s like the free agency period for collegiate athletes. Now, we’re constantly checking our latest news feeds on the latest athletes to enter the transfer portal. For small programs, every day is survival. Every day you are trying to prevent your best players from leaving. And now that college athletes can make money off of their name it makes things even harder for the smaller schools to stay competitive, which makes what Deion Sanders is doing at Jacksonville State all that much more impressive.

With the transfer portal changing the landscape of college athletics for High School students, if you get that D1 offer, you better take it or make a decision quick because every minute of every day players are putting their name in the portal. Coaches will most likely want a proven college player over a high school player. In years past, blue chip prospects would wait on making a decision till the last day allowed. It will push high school prospects to make quicker decisions on their future.

The Athletic came out with a story about tampering and interviewed 17 college coaches who aren’t named in the article and asked them about the impact it’s having. Here are just a few of them in an article comprised of information from the Athletic’s Dana O’Neil, Brendan Quinn, and CJ Moore.

“College football, you verbally commit, and you take five visits. It’s like getting engaged and dating five other girls just in case. In college basketball, we tend to be at least a little more honorable. A kid commits and we back off. So I hope this is the same.”

Anonymous coach via the athletic

“We joke that right now, you’re better off coming in second. Let a kid go somewhere and then you’re the second choice, waiting for him to transfer.”

Anonymous Coach via the athletic

I’m not sure there has been a bigger ‘impact’ transfer than UCLA’s Johnny Juzang, who helped lead the Bruins to the final 4 as an 11 seed. An 11 seed that had to play an extra game in the tournament being in the ‘play-in’ game. Juzang transferred from Kentucky to UCLA and averaged 23 PPG in the NCAA tournament last year, including 28 to beat Michigan and 29 in that historical loss vs. Gonzaga.

One of the front-runners for player of the year is Kentucky big man, Oscar Tshiebwe, who started his collegiate career at West Virginia with Bob Huggins. This man is an absolute monster that looks possessed when he commits to going for a rebound. He has 20 rebound potential everytime he takes the floor, he’s had one game of 28 rebounds already. Just in the two pictures you can see how a change of scenery/coaching can change a player. At West Virginia Tshiebwe was rebounding with 1 hand and laying it up off the glass. As you can see on the right, he’s throwing it down with bad intentions.

For the college blue bloods the quickest way to stay in the top 10 every year is through the portal. With all the players that leave for the NBA the best way to reshape your roster and not have to deal with the ‘Diaper Dandies’, freshman, is by recruiting through the portal. But, how much tampering is going on throughout the season?