Mannie Netherly is quite happy these days, even without football.
He is a father to a five-month-old boy, has a solid job as a FedEx delivery driver and is studying to be an electrician at a Houston-area junior college. But that doesn’t mean he has no regrets about a football career that went south in a hurry.
A four-star signee with LSU in 2016, Netherly transitioned from receiver to cornerback and worked his way into the secondary rotation by the end of his second year in Baton Rouge, even recording a tackle in the Tigers’ rousing Fiesta Bowl win over UCF.
In March 2019, two months after that game, Netherly entered the NCAA transfer portal.
He never played a down of football again.
“You’re taking a big risk by putting your name in the portal,” says Netherly. “The grass is not always greener on the other side.”
Netherly is a cautionary tale of what awaits some players in the transfer portal: nothing. Because of the NCAA’s strict scholarship limitations and the latest portal surge, there are more teamless players than there are teams for them.
Hundreds of college football players find themselves stuck in portal purgatory without desirable landing spots. And there seems to be no end in sight for the latest stream of portal hoppers given sweeping new NCAA rule modernizations. The one-time transfer exception, which eliminates the one-year sit-out penalty for FBS transfers, is scheduled to pass later this spring, and athlete endorsement opportunities, often referred to as name, image and likeness, are expected to arrive by August.
RECRUITING: Top 25 Classes as National Signing Day Approaches
While available players are on the rise, available spots are plummeting. The NCAA’s annual 25-man signing limit is reducing opportunities, and the organization's decision to grant an extra year to athletes in light of COVID-19, while sensible, is creating a “super freshman" class that will further minimize roster spots.
In fact, as the 2021 National Signing Day approaches on Wednesday, college football recruiting stands, like the sport itself, at a seminal moment. This may be the last class of signees before a cascade of legislative changes forever alters recruiting.
Fewer high school players are expected to sign as coaches leave spots for a booming transfer market. Evaluations could grow increasingly difficult with coaches traveling far less as part of a COVID-19-inspired overhaul to the recruiting calendar. And more and more football players could see their careers die in the portal, like Netherly’s.
“Change is inevitable in college football. That’s what makes things better,” says Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck. “But we have to ask ourselves what we’re doing to make things better. We’re heading down a path where there are a lot of rules in place for reasons and you start lifting them and we’re opening a whole new can.”
