The Transfer Portal Could Result in a College Football Farm System

I'm sure I'm not the first person to have this idea, but I just thought about it today and I think it might be genius.

The transfer portal in college football is out of control. Players are transferring schools like hot cakes. And we all know how much hot cakes move around. Great players on non-power 5 teams are transferring to power 5 schools to play big time college football. Players who are riding the bench at power 5 schools are transferring to worse teams to get playing time. Plus a million other reasons/scenarios for transfers. There are no rules. You can transfer whenever and wherever you want for any fucking reason.

This farm system idea seems like something that's going to happen. Take my original tweet for example. Ohio State can recruit the best players in the world. Every year they have 4 and even 5-star players riding the bench. Players that MAC schools like Bowling Green would kill to have on the field. So what if Ohio State and Bowling Green struck a deal? Say Ohio State recruits a 5-star quarterback, but they already have a great 5-star quarterback heading into their second year. Instead of bringing in the recruit to sit on the bench for a couple of years, they send the kid to Bowling Green where he'll start immediately. After 2 years at Bowling Green, when Ohio State needs a quarterback again, he transfers to Ohio State to start. It would work exactly like a farm system.

I know a lot of coaches might prefer to have their player sit on the bench and learn their system for a year or two before starting. But what if they take it one-step further. What if Ohio State and Bowling Green's coaches play the same style offense. The quarterback could learn Ohio State's system on a lower level. When he gets to Ohio State, he'll already have a great understanding of the offense. That's a win for everyone involved. You can do it with every position. 

There are obviously some problems with this. For one, I don't know how you can make players or coaches keep their word. I don't think you can make them sign a contract or anything. A player could spend two years at Bowling Green, transfer to Ohio State, then get beat out by someone else. But nothing is guaranteed in college football as it is. Anybody can get beat out at any time. What would suck the most is if an upperclassman at Bowling Green, who by all means is good enough to start, gets benched for a freshman who's not as good as he is because Bowling Green promised Ohio State he would get a certain amount of playing time in his first couple of years. 

All of that is hypothetical, but that really seems like it could be the natural progression of the transfer portal. The way it is right now is chaos. Which I'm fine with. I just feel like if teams are smart, and can find a way to team up, it would be mutually beneficial.