Transfer portal showcases the latest revolving door in college football

As the curtain went up on Saturday, light snowflakes fell on the spring game of the University of Colorado football team.

Far from putting a damper on the event, they only enhanced the sense of theater surrounding the intrasquad scrimmage of a hitherto irrelevant Buffaloes program: an announced crowd of 47,277 in Boulder, a nationally televised audience, and a head coach who also served acted as master of ceremonies in Deion Sanders, who was adorned with a white cowboy hat, a gold whistle around his neck, and a puffy vest with his nickname “Prime” on it.

The good vibes of the afternoon lasted as long as the fallen snow.

On Sunday, one of the stars of the scrimmage, receiver Montana Lemonious-Craig, announced that he would be looking for another school. Soon he was joined by a teammate. And then another. And another. By the end of Monday, 18 players had entered the transfer portal, continuing another kind of Buffalo stampede.

When Sanders arrived, he told his team in a meeting that “I’m bringing my own luggage – and it’s Louis,” by which he meant Vuitton: in other words, he would instantly upgrade the talent of a team that won only one season. According to Tuesday, only 17 of the 84 scholarship players who were on last season’s opening game, according to the Boulder daily camera.

None of the 10 receivers are left over from last season.

“It was time for me to move on,” Lemonious-Craig said in a phone interview. “I’ve been through three head coaches, four position changes as a coach. It’s been pretty rough. I want to get some stability somewhere else.”

Stability is a foreign concept in college athletics these days.

With the easing of NCAA transfer restrictions, allowing players to cash in on approvals, and lax enforcement of pay-for-play incentives, some players are enjoying what has long been sought: similar freedom of action to coaches, who are rarely required to attend a school for the duration of their contract if a better offer comes along.

So when Bear Alexander, a highly regarded freshman defensive tackle at Georgia, didn’t feel he would play as prominent a role as he wanted next season, he moved to Southern California, where competition for playing time shouldn’t be a hindrance. .

It also didn’t go unnoticed over the weekend that Alabama coach Nick Saban saw what everyone else in attendance did at his team’s spring game: that the quarterback position, for the first time in ages, could be an issue.

Jalen Milroe, a third-year sophomore, threw two interceptions and Ty Simpson, a redshirt freshman, completed less than half of his passes on Saturday. The other candidates for the position are actual freshmen.

Asked an innocent question about the benefits of having quarterbacks in the system as opposed to shopping in the transfer portal, Saban said the most important assessment is who can play winning football.

“I think that’s the better answer to the question: who can do that best?” said Saban, noting that while Alabama has taken few transfers, it has made some big impacts. He added: “When we see an opportunity to do that, we are always looking for a way to make our team better.”

Shopping will soon begin to heat up. The 15-day spring window closes on Sunday (except for graduate transfers who can enter the transfer portal at any time), giving players – and coaches – a chance to assess where they stand after spring training ends. But with reportedly over 1,200 players in the portal, it’s a buyer’s market.

In many schools that means chasing a position of need or deepening. Perhaps there is a slot cornerback or versatile offensive lineman on the market. There will be wholesale shopping in Colorado with 21 available exchanges.

Many departing Colorado players appear to have been forced out, including Jordyn Tyson, a promising sophomore who led the Buffaloes in receiving when he was injured in November. Lemonious-Craig, who had 23 catches for 359 yards and three touchdowns — including the overtime winner against California-Berkeley — said it was his decision not to return.

He said he told his curatorial coach, Brett Bartolone, on Sunday he was leaving, but declined to comment on their conversation. He said he had not spoken to Sanders.

Within hours of entering the transfer portal, Lemonious-Craig posted on Twitter that he had received scholarship offers from a growing list of schools, including Penn State, Auburn, Brigham Young, Mississippi State, Oregon State, Arizona, Washington State, and West Virginia .

“I see myself as a playmaker and I have to constantly prove that I can be a playmaker,” said Lemonious-Craig, who has two more years of eligibility. “I made the decision after the spring competition. I wanted to finish spring ball with my brothers. I wanted to make sure that if this was my last time at Folsom Field, I was taking care of my business.

To some extent, he is a legacy.

Lemonious-Craig, who is on track to graduate next month with a degree in communications, grew up near Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. or sports programs.

Inglewood High won one game in its sophomore season and none in its junior season. After a new coach arrived for his final season – along with a series of transfers – Inglewood went undefeated until losing the section semi-finals. He also played basketball and track running, graduating with the nickname Mr. Inglewood. (His Twitter banner is a photo of the Forum, long ago home of the Lakers and Kings in Inglewood.)

“He comes from a town that grows and changes, but Montana never succumbed to anything around him,” says Mil’Von James, who has coached the Inglewood football team for the past four seasons and grew up not far away. “When I took over it would have been easy for a lad with his talent to leave. He was the leader of the team, the most dedicated lad we had.”

James speaks regularly with Lemonious-Craig and said he has thought a lot about the decision to leave Colorado.

“Sometimes change is good for everyone,” said James.

Twenty years ago, James went to college at UCLA, among those in the first recruiting class of a new coach, Karl Dorrell — who was Lemonious-Craig’s previous head coach at Colorado. But frustrated at not getting a chance to play cornerback—James idolized Sanders—he transferred to Nevada-Las Vegas, where he started two seasons after being required to sit out one season under NCAA rules at the time.

“If I had been allowed to do it all over again, I might not have left UCLA,” said James. “My time at UNLV was great, but there are also times when I wonder if I had lasted how that would have changed me.”

He added: “Now it’s a new world. There’s a lot more player empowerment, but the portal is also a dangerous place. Many children come in and not everyone gets out.”

It’s still business, but not necessarily as usual.