Thoughts on college football transfer portal, Ohio State’s spending spree and

I’m old enough to remember when April was a fairly sleepy time in college football, save for spring games (which themselves can put you to sleep). But now, every second of every day is another portal transaction, another list of finalists or another defensive end saying he fled Pitt because … the team’s offense is so bad.

Great content all around.

Note: Submitted questions have been edited for clarity and length.

Max Olson had an interesting piece about how different programs view the transfer portal. What are your thoughts about the different approaches that seem to be emerging? What is sustainable? — Brad R. in Knoxville

As Max illustrated well, all these programs are in different situations, so their approaches vary accordingly. And they may even vary within the same program from one year to the next.

It’s not sustainable to bring in 25 new transfers every year. But, it may be unavoidable when a coach takes over a new program, either because the roster wasn’t very good or because it got decimated after the coaching change. For instance, Washington’s Jedd Fisch took over a program that lost nearly all its best players either to the NFL or the portal and is alarmingly thin on the offensive line, among other areas. It would be negligent on his part not to go load up in this portal window and likely will be next year as well.

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In an ideal world, you’re Alabama, Georgia or Ohio State and still build your roster primarily through traditional recruiting, then use the portal just to plug a few holes. Georgia added just one transfer in the offseason leading up to its second national title team, then four last year, before jumping to eight this year. I don’t believe Kirby Smart has any plans to ever sign 15 to 20 transfers in a single offseason.

But 99 percent of coaches aren’t sitting on a stockpile of existing talent like Smart.

The MVP of the portal era has been Florida State’s Mike Norvell, who leaned heavily on the portal to turn his program around across several seasons while continuing to build and maintain culture. The key reason for that: Most of the Seminoles’ portal players have not been one-year rent-a-players. Players like wide receiver Johnny Wilson (Arizona State), running back Trey Benson (Oregon) and defensive end Jared Verse (Albany) were there for at least two seasons. And I’m not even counting quarterback Jordan Travis, who transferred from Louisville so long ago that he played his first season at FSU for Willie Taggart.

Mike Norvell led Florida State to the ACC championship in 2023. (Melina Myers / USA Today)

But this whole thing is still evolving and is likely going to get even more chaotic. The NCAA only now is about to make unlimited transfers permanent after being forced into it by a lawsuit filed late last year. Coaches are going to have to be very…