Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama on Tuesday touted a bill that would limit college athlete transfers, saying that the unlimited transfers of the last few years have “screwed up” college sports.
As reported by The Hill, the former head football coach at Auburn, Mississippi, Texas Tech and Cincinnati said his bill would allow athletes a one-time transfer but would require them to sit out for a year before joining their new team during subsequent transfers.
“Transferring every year interrupts a student’s education and is bad for team morale,” Tuberville, a prior recipient of the AP College Football Coach of the Year Award, wrote in a social media post Tuesday. “That’s why I’m introducing a bill that would allow student-athletes to transfer 1 time without penalty, no questions asked. After that if you choose to transfer, you sit out a year. It’s simple."
Per the reporting of The Hill's Ashleigh Fields, Tuberville said current policies allow movement that resembles “unrestricted free agency rather than amateur competition.”
This movement is often spurred by the promise of more lucrative name, image and likeness deals in new locations.
In an interview with Outkick cited by Fields, Tuberville said athletes are “selling themselves” for $50,000 to $100,000 rather than buying in to an athletic program.
"Some schools promise access to better brand deals drawing more interest from student athletes who may feel overlooked at their current programs leading them to transfer," Fields wrote Tuesday for The Hill.
Tuberville says the issue has caused thousands to abandon their schools, citing statistics that say 3,200 football players, 2,300 men’s basketball players and 1,500 women’s basketball players were in the transfer portal last year alone, Fields reported.
