It could be argued that the biggest change in college sports, especially football, is the importance of the transfer portal. Players transferred all the time before, but now that the rule of having to wait a year before playing for your new school has been eliminated, more kids enter the portal now than ever before.
In recent years, the portal has been just as important as high school recruiting. If you're not mining the portal as a coach, you're probably not doing your job. It could mean winning a national title now rather than later or ever. The teams that use the portal effectively are usually the teams that are still playing in January.
Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks are one of those programs that have used the portal to its fullest. The
NCAA is now trying to curb the importance of the portal by limiting it to just one two-week window in the most inopportune time, during the playoffs. While the timing may not be perfect, it does change things, taking away the potential opportunity for players to leave after spring practices wrap up and find a new home.
At Oregon's annual Media Day before the season gets going, Lanning was asked about how his approach towards the portal might change with the new schedule.
"I don't know how much it changed it," he said. "You get to the end of the spring, you say, 'Okay, this is who we got. You got to work with the guys you have.' I think it created a little bit more of a focus on improvement rather than figuring out. Okay, is this guy comfortable in his role? Does he want to leave? Does he want to stay? I think us having the chance to say walk into the spring, know where our team is in spring ball, and work with that team all spring and summer I think is a huge benefit."
For teams such as the Ducks, annual playoff contenders, having the portal window open from Jan. 2-16 just adds one more thing for coaching staffs to worry about. Not only are they looking to add through the portal, the program has to wonder which players will be leaving during the playoff stretch. It's not ideal, but it's the way it is.
"Obviously, the negative is the portal opens while the season's still going on. You deal with that a little bit, so it doesn't change the construction a ton," Lanning said. "Even going in spring last year, you want to build the best team you can possibly build before you get to spring. And that's no different. But you do then have the opportunity to say, 'Okay, here's a hole that maybe we want to fill. Here's a hole that maybe we want to look at, where you can bring guys in that can make an impact.' And that wasn't the case this year."
Oregon is expected to be a huge contender for a national championship this season, and it has to hope the roster turnaround is minimal and it doesn't affect the Ducks' chances too much.
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This article originally appeared on Ducks Wire: Dan Lanning explains approach to new transfer portal schedule
