NFL News NFL News, Reports and Updates
DETROIT — In recent years, it has become more and more challenging to be a college football head coach.
Gone are the days of recruiting players and coaching them up for four or five years. Instead, the sport finds itself in an era of unprecedented player movement thanks to the transfer portal quickly facilitating moves between NCAA institutions with few restrictions.
Widespread tampering under the guise of name, image and likeness (NIL) deals has only exacerbated such movement. While schools and coaches can’t directly recruit players from other teams, there are no rules preventing independent NIL collectives from negotiating with agents and making offers to players to enter the portal. This has created a system where the top players in the NCAA’s non-autonomous conferences (Group of 5) are often poached by teams in autonomous conferences (Power 4).
The Mid-American Conference is in the former group, seeing its top talent migrate up to the Power 4 level more frequently over the last few years. Of the 11 players on the 2024 All-MAC first-team who retained eligibility for 2025, only two will return to their 2024 teams. Meanwhile, eight of the nine who transferred wound up at Power 4 schools.
This new era raises plenty of questions. How can the coaches of the MAC best respond and adapt to the constant roster turnover? Does the constantly looming threat of the portal affect locker rooms during the season? How understanding are players when their teammates move on? Well, like almost everything else, it varies from school to school.
Coaches emphasize culture, relationships
Perhaps the most eventful transfer portal season among the MAC…
Source link : https://www.thestarpress.com/story/sports/college/ball-state/2025/07/26/how-mac-football-has-shifted-in-the-nil-and-transfer-portal-era-college-football-ball-state/85282000007/
Author :
Publish date : 2025-07-26 13:07:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
