Clay Helton explains how he handles USC players in the transfer portal
USC was clearly a big winner when it came to the NCAA transfer portal this offseason, adding 5-star transfers Bru McCoy (from Texas) and Chris Steele (from) Florida.
The Trojans also saw three of their own players enter the portal only to return with redshirt sophomore cornerback Greg Johnson making a quick reversal of his decision in the spring, while redshirt junior wide receiver Velus Jones and redshirt junior quarterback Matt Fink needed months to sort out their futures.
Other USC players who entered the portal did find new football homes, such as linebacker Levi Jones (NC State), wide receiver Randal Grimes (UNLV), safety Bubba Bolden (Miami), linebacker Wole Betiku (Illinois), wide receiver Josh Imatorbhebhe (Illinois) and wide receiver Trevon Sidney (Illinois). And freshman cornerback Trey Davis, who had just arrived on campus a month earlier is already in the portal due to what Helton said was a family situation.
But what is Helton's overall philosophy on allowing players who enter the portal to return? He shared his thoughts on that Wednesday at Pac-12 Media Day.
"The one thing going into it, I thought that -- I reminded myself that people are 18 to 21 years old and each story is different," Helton said. "You take Velus Jones, for example. Velus has got a family situation at home with a grandfather in ICU, and how much he loves his family and how hard a time it was for his family, and he needed to figure things out for himself and see what was best for him. And at the end of the day he came to agree that USC and getting his degree and being here with his brothers and playing for his brothers was important to him and what he wanted. ...
"And then there's other situations that young men get a degree, and they want to garner a bigger role and a grander experience. And I welcome that. I ask them to do one thing: get their degree. So I think each case is different, and the greatest gift you can give somebody is your time, and I felt like going in, knowing there would be a ton of people that put their name in the transfer portal -- I think we were over 2,500 for about 300 spots -- that you were going to need to help young men. And that's part of our job as coaches, is to be able to guide and teach and help young people."
Jones, who was in the portal from early March to early June, and Fink, who entered the portal after the spring returned almost two months later, both said they knew they had the opportunity to return.
But surely there was not room on the roster and under the scholarship limitations for USC to give every kid who entered the portal the same time to consider a potential return.
"Each case is different, and there's certain situations that when a player leaves, it might be best for him. And [we] had that discussion with him that, hey, if we choose to go this [route] I'm going to help you in any way I can, help you find the right place. But it's your opportunity to have the chance to find the best place for you, and we'll find the next opportunity for somebody to fill that role," Helton said. "And then there's situations that I think kids need time, and there were some kids on our football team that needed time, and I want to make sure I granted that. I didn't lay down a hard-line rule of, oh, if you put your name in the portal, you're not a Trojan. Each case was different, and I wanted to help each kid."
The transfer portal was a popular topic at Pac-12 Media day, with many of the league's head coaches chiming in with their thoughts on those matters.
Utah coach Kyle Whittingham, for example, said he has a staffer assigned to the portal who monitors it every day. He called it a "tedious" job while noting that the names in the portal are "haphazardly" input with no organization or delineation by position.
The whole process could be considered haphazard, for that matter, as Whittingham also touched upon Wednesday.
"The portal has changed the game -- not dramatically because there still was movement before that, but certainly that movement has been enhanced. But I think that it may slow down again because I know there's a lot of guys in the portal that got no place to go right now," he said. "The portal is still stocked with guys that don't have any place to go, and they can't go back to the original institution because most coaches take the same stance that we do: If you go to the portal, then you're done here.
"There's no coming back. It's not shop yourself around, if I get a better deal, take it; if not, I'll come back. And so I think in the future, players will see what happened to some of the guys, maybe be a little bit more judicious about making that decision to enter the portal."
Washington State coach Mike Leach also warned that the transfer portal craze could soon get out of hand.
"If we're not careful, that portal can become a free-for-all. If somebody can just transfer for whatever reason anywhere and be eligible, then at some point we're going to end up taking scholarships from somebody that doesn't have a good year and giving them to some walk-on that does, I would imagine. You want some structure to this thing," he said.
"I do think the portal has diminished some of that. It hasn't hurt us. I mean, in our case, guys that we've lost on the portal are either guys far enough down the depth chart that they want on the field [elsewhere], or else they're people that we were better off without anyway."
Washington coach Chris Petersen also has his concerns about the decisions many kids are making now that the transfer portal was added ease to the process of pursuing a change.
He likened it to free agency while making the point that regardless of the effects it has on a football program, he doesn't think the rash decision-making it leads to is always in the best interests of the players either.
"First and foremost, I don't think it's good for the kids. Everybody wants to talk about that. I've seen too many guys, including myself, have to work through hard things where maybe you tap out, or it's easier, I'm going to go somewhere elsewhere I think it's better. It's usually not," Petersen said. "I just really believe that. So that's just kind of my feeling on that."
Interestingly, one of the softest stances on the portal came from UCLA coach Chip Kelly, who has the reputation of being one of the gruffer coaches in the league.
"I think the transfer portal is a good thing. If kids go somewhere and they're not happy there, then they should be allowed to go where they're going to be happy," Kelly said. "I mean, coaches move. I don't know why players can't move. I've never had a problem with the transfer portal. And I don't understand that argument. Sometimes it's not the same thing. A kid may have gotten recruited by one coach and a new staff comes in. Well, why does that kid have to stay, know what I mean?
"I think the transfer portal is good, and I think the players -- they just need to know all the facts. Just because you go on the transfer portal doesn't mean another school is going to offer you a scholarship, either. I think they need to do their homework on their end so they're not caught left out in the woods. But I don't have an issue with the transfer rule."
Arizona coach Kevin Sumlin also echoed that point made by Kelly, Helton and others.
"We had our share of guys in the portal this year,too, just like everybody else. I think the amazing thing I saw a stat in, what was it, February or March, how many guys were in the portal. There's not that many scholarships out there, right?" he said. "So that's the other piece. That portal is a two-way street. You get in there, yeah, you're able to transfer, but a coach can cancel your aid. There were so many guys in there at one point last year, there was no way that there were that many scholarships at the Division I level."
From a program standpoint, the main shared concern for the coaches was roster management.
Whittingham said he and his staff now intentionally leave a few scholarship spots open after National Signing Day with an eye toward that bountiful transfer market.
But the flip side is being able to recover from having scholarship players leave on a whim.
Sumlin noted that he talked with Kelly about the matter previously, commiserating over some of those challenges, especially as first-year head coaches last year.
"The college cycle, if a guy leaves during the season, it's really two years, because you've got to recruit a guy, then get him here. The portal is an interesting situation. But there's probably going to have to be in the end some sort of relief on the back end for a signing date because there's no way to recover in a 25-guy cycle of signing things if you've got guys constantly in and out of the portal," Sumlin said.
"I was talking to coach [Kelly] earlier this year, at one point they had 16 guys in the portal, and he was spending as much time recruiting his own team as he was guys outside of there. So that's the challenge. You add that along with graduate transfers, which is as big as it's ever been right now. So the roster management piece, because of the portal, becomes the real challenging issue for coaches right now."