How does the transfer portal work with regard to scholarship limits?

VideoEagle · November 8, 2021

I'm curious about how the transfer portal works with regard to scholarship limits and the number of scholarships we can offer in any single year. I know that if you give too many scholarships to JUCO players, you get in trouble on your total scholarships as they are gone in just 2 years (generally) and scholarships per year and total are based on taking 5 years to play 4. With too many JUCO players, you can get to where you can't give the full 85 scholarships and once you get behind, it is really hard to catch back up.

Please, someone that knows more about this, explain how the transfer portal works in relation to these limits. Or do the rules not apply to transfers?

El Paso Eagle · November 8, 2021

1 hour ago, VideoEagle said:

I'm curious about how the transfer portal works with regard to scholarship limits and the number of scholarships we can offer in any single year. I know that if you give too many scholarships to JUCO players, you get in trouble on your total scholarships as they are gone in just 2 years (generally) and scholarships per year and total are based on taking 5 years to play 4. With too many JUCO players, you can get to where you can't give the full 85 scholarships and once you get behind, it is really hard to catch back up.

Please, someone that knows more about this, explain how the transfer portal works in relation to these limits. Or do the rules not apply to transfers?

I asked the same question earlier on the recruiting board. Guess I'm not the only one lost when it come to the numbers

Edited November 8, 2021 by El Paso Eagle

DentonLurker · November 8, 2021

I'm confused too, but I think this article has it right. It is from 2019 though.

SI.COM

Quote

In NCAA parlance, an initial counter is a new scholarship player at a school. In football, a school can take up to 25 initial counters each academic year as long as it doesn’t go over the 85-scholarship maximum. This rule exists for several reasons:

• To keep teams from stockpiling the best players.

• To keep teams from oversigning and shuffling out less productive older players to cover their recruiting mistakes.

• To keep a new coach from running off an entire team so he can replace the players with his own recruits.

A scholarship player signed out of high school counts as an initial. So does a junior college transfer. And so do transfers from four-year schools—be they undergraduates or graduate students. The Group of Five school our Power 5 staffer contacted had bad news: We’re full up.

In other words, that school already had 25 initial counters joining the team for the 2019–20 academic year. That potential transfer would have to look elsewhere. Across the country this month, players are going to start spring practice and frown when they realize where they sit on the depth chart. They are going to be intrigued by the possibility of transferring, and the freedom afforded by the new transfer rules makes it easy to toss their name into the portal. But they need to evaluate their situation very carefully before they do that, because there probably aren’t going to be enough available scholarships for all the players who want to transfer.

It also looks like they're planning to expand on that with the way the portal and 1-time transfer waiver is working.

FOOTBALLSCOOP.COM

Quote

Raising the limit is viewed as a necessary counterbalance to the 1-time transfer waiver, where players can leave and play immediately and possibly leave their old programs in a lurch.

Until now, programs have been limited to 25 initial counters. Once approved, coaches could replace each out-bound transfer with an in-bound transfer, up to seven players.

Edited November 8, 2021 by DentonLurker

El Paso Eagle · November 8, 2021

You also have to factor in the fact that everyone was awarded an extra year.

VideoEagle · November 8, 2021

Thanks for the information. This confirms what I thought - you CAN get yourself in trouble with too many transfers. Taking in a transfer with only one year left of eligibility counts the same as taking someone with 5 years including a red shirt year. A few is no problem, but you don't want more than 10 or 12 of your total 85 scholarship limit to be taken up by transfers. You also need to be careful to manage how much eligibly they have left. You don't want to end up with a group of over 25 that all use up their eligibility the same year or you will not be able to fill all the slots the next year. That can happen if you have a class with 20 kids that came in as freshmen, five juco players and then two transfers all using up eligibility at the same time. Playing with less than a full 85 scholarship athletes get very tough.

While the transfer portal can be a great tool to fill a special need, over using it just like over using JUCO players will hurt a program in the long run.

AsianEagle · November 9, 2021

4 hours ago, VideoEagle said:

Thanks for the information. This confirms what I thought - you CAN get yourself in trouble with too many transfers. Taking in a transfer with only one year left of eligibility counts the same as taking someone with 5 years including a red shirt year. A few is no problem, but you don't want more than 10 or 12 of your total 85 scholarship limit to be taken up by transfers. You also need to be careful to manage how much eligibly they have left. You don't want to end up with a group of over 25 that all use up their eligibility the same year or you will not be able to fill all the slots the next year. That can happen if you have a class with 20 kids that came in as freshmen, five juco players and then two transfers all using up eligibility at the same time. Playing with less than a full 85 scholarship athletes get very tough.

While the transfer portal can be a great tool to fill a special need, over using it just like over using JUCO players will hurt a program in the long run.

Do you get scholarships back when your own kids enter the transfer portal?