One of the interesting emerging aspects of the NCAA Transfer Portal has nothing to do with why athletes are entering it, and has everything to do with how coaches are managing the affect it’s having on their rosters.
Previously, of course, coaches had a firm number in mind year after year when it came to how many incoming freshmen they needed, factor in a small percentage of attrition every year (leaving school, quitting their sport, or some other unique factor), and move on to the next class without a lot of worries about the class they had just recruited.
Now, that’s changing.
Coaches are losing ten, twenty, even fifty percent of their rosters year to year due to players easily being able to transfer via the portal. The result has been a growing concern among coaches in all sports at all levels, and is raising some operational questions that are begging for the right answers:
- How are other coaches planning for roster expansion and contraction year to year?
- What percentage of my roster should I reserve for transfer prospects?
- How do I avoid over-recruiting and over-promising high school prospects caught in the middle?
There are no perfect answers to those questions, but we are getting enough data, and real world working experience from our clients, to give some solid recommendations to coaches who are looking at being proactive rather than reactive to this latest college recruiting challenge.
How are other coaches planning for roster expansion and contraction year to year?
Like I said, there are no perfect answers here, but what we do know is this: Even if it’s an ‘imperfect’ plan, you need to have a plan.
A standard number I see being used when it comes to planning for transfer possibilities coming into a coach’s program is 20%. In other words, on average over the last two recruiting cycles where the transfer portal has gained popularity, coaches have started to hold back twenty percent of their roster space and scholarship money, if applicable, for possible incoming transfers. At the start of the Transfer Portal phenomenon, many coaches were caught off-guard by the number of good incoming transfer prospects, and were frustrated by the fact that they didn’t have room for them on their rosters or with their available scholarship packages that had already been committed. Holding back a percentage of your roster and reserving it for incoming transfers is a smart thing to do moving forward. Whatever percentage you choose, go into the process with this new recruiting reality with a firm plan.
What percentage of my roster should I reserve for transfer prospects?
While I did just answer that question, let me get into some more detail and give you some additional direction in figuring out how to determine the right reserve amount for your program:
Like I said, twenty percent of a roster space reserved for transfers is a loose average based on what we’re hearing, but it’s not a number etched in stone. If you are a coach who prefers to only recruit high school athletes, or is asked by your athletic department or admissions department to over-recruit, you might not want to worry about transfers midway through their college sports careers. If that describes you, you can probably keep that reserve space at zero to ten percent. And you shouldn’t feel pressured to use the Transfer Portal, as many coaches have chose not to. For example, Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney has been very public about not using the Portal, saying, “My transfer portal is right there in that locker room, because if I’m constantly going out every year and adding guys from the transfer portal, I’m telling all those guys in that locker room that I don’t believe in them, that I don’t think they can play. We’re also not doing our job as coaches and recruiters if we’re bringing in a bunch of transfers. We’re not going to build our roster on transfers.”
That’s him, and it may be you, too.
If it’s not, and you want to build a program through recruiting prospects in the Transfer Portal, you’ll want to allocate more roster spots and/or scholarship money set aside for that recruiting venue.
Either way, as long as you have a plan – and a state goal you want to achieve through that plan – you’re going to be fine.
How do I avoid over-recruiting and over-promising high school prospects caught in the middle?
This is where it gets tough.
Why? Because if you are going to allocate a portion of your roster and scholarships towards transfers, it means you will end up pursuing a high school prospect and recruiting him or her deep into the process, professing your love for them and outlining a plan for their time in your program, only to have them be replaced on your recruiting board by a last minute Transfer Portal prospect.
You’ll break their heart. You’ll upset the parents. And, you’ll probably be a better team because you said ‘yes’ to that Transfer Portal student-athlete for a reason, and I’m guessing it’s because they’ll make an immediate positive impact on your roster, which means you’ve improved your team. And, that’s what your role as a coach is for your college or university: Create the best program you can that represents the campus to the fullest. Your job isn’t to ‘make kids happy’…that’s an impossible goal, and will continually disappoint you if you make it one. Can your kids be happy within your program as a byproduct of how you coach and give them the platform to succeed? Absolutely, but how they accept their role, and the life lessons that come with it, depends on them. Not you.
Whether you choose to go all-in on the Transfer Portal, or take a more reserved approach or intentionally avoid transfers so you can build a program around four year student-athletes, your job is to create a good representation of your college for the outside world to see. If you’re doing that on a consistent basis, however you choose to answer those three questions are going to be the right answer.
Develop a plan, execute that plan, measure the results, and adjust as needed. That’s the key to succeeding in managing your approach with the NCAA Transfer Portal.
Want more of Dan Tudor’s discussion on effectively managing the NCAA Transfer Portal? Click here for a popular coaching convention talk he did on the topic that was posted on our College Recruiting Weekly podcast. He covers a lot of detail on how today’s athlete is making the decision in the Portal, and what the researching is saying that pushed them to want to transfer in the first place.