College football is very different now than it was two decades ago, as it has never been easier for players to transfer if they want to change teams. Although there used to be more restrictions for transfers, now they usually can play immediately at their new school as long as they meet the proper deadlines.
As a result, many college football stars of yesteryear can’t relate to stars of the present. For Peyton and Eli Manning, the transfer portal is such a foreign concept that they don’t have a distinctly positive or negative opinion of it.
“I think the goal is to try to get it right the first time and to spend a lot of time making that decision,” Peyton Manning said, via Stefan Krajisnik of the Clarion Ledger. “There are lots of individual cases. I can’t speak for everybody. I want the kids to have a good college football experience.”
Peyton acknowledged that, since transferring was so difficult in the 1990s, he can’t relate to players today who have that as a ready option.
“I understand certainly–look, if you get to a school and the coach that recruited you leaves and they change systems from the spread offense to the Wing-T, it makes sense,” he said.
Eli Manning played college football a few years after Peyton but has a similar opinion of the portal, although Eli likes the fact that it allows players greater opportunities to play.
“There’s good and bad with it,” Eli Manning said. “Giving opportunities for guys to find the right place to come in, to become a starter, to play football, to be there for a number of years–I’m happy to see that and that it’s working out.”
Had Peyton or Eli played in the era of the transfer portal, it is unlikely they would have needed it as both were highly touted recruits who started by their sophomore year. Still, they remain two of the most influential voices in football, so their opinion on topics such as the transfer portal goes a long way.
