AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — When Pittsburgh receiver Jordan Addison entered the transfer portal last week, the move sent shock waves throughout college football.
It wasn’t so much that the reigning Biletnikoff Award winner decided to explore options elsewhere; it was the rumors that he was exploring a move based on a multimillion-dollar name, image and likeness deal with Southern California. The move so incensed Panthers coach Pat Narduzzi that he reportedly called USC coach Lincoln Riley to accuse him of tampering.
Even with so much smoke surrounding Addison’s decision, there is little anyone can do to put out the fire.
It’s why the frustration boiled over when ACC coaches and athletic directors gathered this week for the conference’s annual spring meetings.
“Tampering is one of the major issues in college football,” said Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson. “There doesn’t appear to be any enforcement and nobody’s quite sure what the rules are. It’s like a road without a speed limit or the speed limit never being enforced. We don’t know what the rules are and if there are rules, they’re broken and there don’t appear to be any consequences for breaking them.”
Clawson, the chair for the football coaches, said it generated a lot of discussions.
“It’s concerning,” he said. “What is tampering right now? How do you prove it? A coach can easily direct a player to contact another player and let them know that these opportunities might be here if you went into the portal.
“Our challenge as coaches is how do you stop that?”
Tampering isn’t new. Still, with the ever-changing landscape of NIL where some collectives and boosters are providing unlimited financial support, it’s become messier and more public.
USC quarterback Caleb Williams, who grew up with Addison in the Maryland area, hasn’t been shy about wanting the receiver to join him in Los Angeles.
Clawson doesn’t believe most schools are tampering when it comes to the transfer market, but those that do tamper do so strategically. He’s also heard firsthand when someone reached out to one of his players.
“We had a player this year tell us that,” he said. “There was another school that reached out to him through a player that if he had an interest in going there, there was a scholarship available and a certain amount of NIL money that would become available. There was no direct contact from the staff, but it was from another player. There’s a bunch of stories in that room.”
Notre Dame’s Mike Brey has spent more than three decades as a men’s basketball coach — the last 22 with the Fighting Irish — and he still gets paranoid when thinking about the transfer portal.
“Last year, the portal was popping and one of my assistants came in and said, ‘Hey, Coach, I want you to know I get up every morning and I read the Bible and then I checked the portal. I told him to switch the order,” Brey said.
But Brey warns his colleagues not to get too caught up in the roller-coaster ride that is NIL.
“We’ve got to stop complaining because this is the world we’re in,” Brey said. “The last time I checked, we make pretty good money. So everybody should shut up and adjust.”
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips tried to calm the waters when speaking with the coaches this week.
“I didn’t say what Mike Brey said and I certainly didn’t say, ‘Hey, just give us a little bit of time and it’ll be just like it was three or four years ago’ because I don’t believe that and I don’t believe it philosophically,” Phillips said. “We are in a different place in college athletics and we have to embrace it and move forward with kind of these new rules of engagement.”
Coaches’ discontent has been shared with the athletic directors.
“Coaches did talk a little bit about just being frustrated about some of those pieces, but we have to continue to move forward there,” Miami AD Dan Radakovich said.
Added Wake Forest AD John Currie, “That frustration is universal, but we don’t have these jobs because they’re easy jobs. We have responsibility entrusted to us and part of that responsibility is to figure out answers to tough situations.”
Clawson said that the player reporting the possible tampering is a good sign that he wanted to remain with the program and trusted the process.
Florida State athletics director Michael Alford also has firsthand knowledge on the subject and his solution was simple.
“I’ve had this happen at a previous place with a kid who transferred — not football — another sport. You reach out and say, ‘Hey, this took place. I can’t prove it, but it’s amazing when you enter the transfer portal and an hour later, you’re enrolled in a school.’
“You just reach out and just try to have that conversation with your counterpart and say let’s do what’s right here and be collegial about it. Other than that, you work with the rules you have in place, but it’s difficult to prove.”
One way ACC coaches are trying to combat the issue is with a proposal that would establish restrictions on intraconference transfers. It’s similar to legislation adopted by the SEC where a player who wants to transfer inside the league must enter the portal by Feb. 1. If the player misses the deadline, he or she must sit out a year.
“If a player wants to leave after the season, that’s fair game, but you don’t want a player going through all of your spring practices with you and then you’re playing against them four months later,” Clawson said.
