This week, rumors are swirling as the college football transfer portal opens. Notre Dame recently found out that it will lose Tobias Merriweather,Zeke Correll, Chris Tyree and Nana Osafo-Mensah, among others. Additionally, while not officially confirmed, several national college football reporters, including NBC’s Nicole Auerbach, are reporting that Duke quarterback Riley Leonard is expected to transfer to Notre Dame.
Assuming the Leonard move goes through, Notre Dame will once again be starting a transfer quarterback. This would now be the third time in four years. Unlike Jack Coan and Sam Hartman, Leonard would be an undergraduate transfer. Unofficially, Notre Dame typically shies away from accepting undergraduate transfers.
Moves such as this eliminate the need to play young, inexperienced quarterbacks. Next year, the Irish will welcome the highly rated CJ Carr, one of the top five quarterbacks in his class. Carr has had a brilliant senior season of high school. He’ll join the Notre Dame program over the winter to begin preparations for the spring. Nonetheless, it now appears that the preparations will last longer than the current offseason. Barring something unexpected, Carr will likely not see the field next year. Of course, he’ll be practicing frequently and sitting in on meetings. However, not actually playing in games will hinder his potential and slow his development.
Players need to make mistakes to grow. This is part of a potentially concerning trend across all of college football. Four and five-star quarterbacks are frequently being shown the bench in favor of graduate transfers. This year, per 247Sports, 62% of Power Five starting quarterbacks are transfers, a stat that undoubtedly scares high school recruits. Even the best of the best — like Alabama’s Jalen Milroe — had to battle transfers like Tyler Buchner for their spots. Three-star quarterbacks are now almost exclusively relegated to being career backups.
For elite programs, this new trend is reassuring. A program like Notre Dame will no longer have “down” seasons. Assuming they can find a top transfer quarterback, especially during a transition year, they should be consistently contending for the new 12-team playoff. At the same time, games will no longer provide developmental opportunities. I predict that more four and five-star prospects will head straight to FCS or mid-major schools where they can play immediately. The best of these programs — the likes of Washington State, Oregon State, San Diego State, UConn, North Dakota State and St. Thomas — suddenly have an impressively unique recruiting angle: come here, ball out and transfer to the school of your choice.
For fans, this should make games more entertaining, at least on the offensive side of the ball. Sure, I enjoy myself a good Iowa-Northwestern classic every once in a while. But in general, I’d rather watch two teams utilizing Air Raid offenses. College football seems to be gravitating toward the Minor League Baseball model, where the best quarterbacks are constantly playing and improving with the eventual goal of making the big leagues — a Power Five institution. For fans, this is great! For the most part, it guarantees that the players they watch are legitimate and ready. No longer are we judging a player based off his performance in high school, which is especially challenging because of the vast discrepancies of the quality of the high school game across America.
As much as the transfer portal can be frustrating, it should make mid-major games more exciting while bringing a higher standard of consistency to programs like Notre Dame.
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