{"id":3703,"date":"2019-01-24T08:57:32","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T13:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gridironstuds.com\/blog\/?p=3703"},"modified":"2019-01-27T10:27:38","modified_gmt":"2019-01-27T15:27:38","slug":"so-you-want-to-transfer-eh-some-things-for-you-to-consider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/so-you-want-to-transfer-eh-some-things-for-you-to-consider\/","title":{"rendered":"So You Want to Transfer Eh? Some Things For You to Consider"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Chad Wilson – Editor – GridironStuds Blog<\/strong>
\nTwitter: @GridironStuds<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the end of each year,\u00a0 Webster’s dictionary will come up with the word or phrase of the year.\u00a0 It’s typically an old word that became alive again by it’s repetitive use socially during the year that has come to an end.\u00a0 We haven’t reached the end of the month of January\u00a0 yet but already we may have been blessed with our phrase of the year and it’s “transfer portal”.<\/p>\n

Just about every year I will field about a dozen calls from college football players that are looking for a new home for their football dreams.\u00a0 The reasons for doing so can be numerous.\u00a0 They can range from conflict with a coach, buried on the depth chart to problems at home.\u00a0 Most of the time,\u00a0 they don’t involve transferable reasons so more than 80% of the time,\u00a0 I advise the athlete to stick it out,\u00a0 work through the problems and rise above it.<\/p>\n

By and large,\u00a0 the life of a transfer is not a pretty one.\u00a0 Often times the problems you are experiencing at your particular program are likely to be the same problems you will face at another.\u00a0 Generally speaking,\u00a0 college coaches are the same across the board.\u00a0 Their job is to get the most that they can out of you in practice and hope you deliver that come game day.\u00a0 This can also be a metaphor for your life as they are also helping you grow into a quality young man.\u00a0 The ways that coaches go about that may vary but ultimately,\u00a0 the desired outcome is the same.<\/p>\n

What many student-athletes lack is an amount of awareness and perspective.\u00a0 Most do not go through all of the self checks before they make the decision to leave.\u00a0 This is an all important step for one to make before they leave what they believe to be a bad situation.\u00a0 Do you work that hard?\u00a0 Are you respectful to your coach?\u00a0 Have you demonstrated a character that your coaches can trust?\u00a0 Are you really better than the guy or guys in front of you?<\/p>\n

If you don’t make that all important self check then you will go through all the trouble of transferring and take along with you to the new spot all of your broken habits.\u00a0 Remember what I said,\u00a0 coaches are generally the same.\u00a0 Your broken habits at the new spot will generate you the results you had at the old one.\u00a0 Typically,\u00a0 after have I forced the student athlete to be brutally honest about themselves (usually by me being brutally honest with them) the athlete will do what they needed to do all along and that is fix themselves.\u00a0 Something as simple as looking away while your coach is talking to you could indicate that you can’t be trusted.\u00a0 How does he know you are listening?\u00a0 You may have been doing this all your life and getting away with it because you were either the best player on your little league and high school team.\u00a0 However,\u00a0 you are in a room now with a bunch of guys that can play and something as simple as making eye contact can be the difference between you playing or not playing.<\/p>\n

If you’ve done all the internal checks and you don’t have any check engine lights on,\u00a0 here are some things you may need to consider before you go morphing into “the transfer portal”.<\/p>\n

First of all,\u00a0 the only way to get into the transfer portal is to go tell your coach that you want to go in it.\u00a0 Your coach then has two days to put you in.\u00a0 For some athletes,\u00a0 that’s a no return situation.\u00a0 If you stick your neck out there and don’t get any bites from other programs you wish to go to,\u00a0 you may also be dead at the program you are at.\u00a0 Football scholarships are one year renewables.\u00a0 Your coach may view your desire to leave as an act of treason and not renew that scholarship next year.<\/p>\n

Second,\u00a0 what do you have to sell to another program.\u00a0 If you have not stepped on the field for your current school,\u00a0 why would another program want you? If you have no game film action,\u00a0 you better have some very strong practice clips or you better have been a world beater in high school.\u00a0 That high school career better have been a year or less ago.\u00a0 No game film,\u00a0 no practice film,\u00a0 no scholarship.\u00a0 Most places will gladly offer you the chance to walk-on though.\u00a0 Are you ready for that walk-on life especially after having experienced being on scholarship?<\/p>\n

Third,\u00a0 how are you doing academically at your current school?\u00a0 Poor performance academically could make you ineligible at many of the places you wish to go to.\u00a0 Better check your transcripts and the academic requirements of the places you wish to go to.\u00a0 You may not be able to get in.\u00a0 Getting stuck in the portal with no place to go due to academics is a kin to your WiFi going down.\u00a0 We know how tragic that can be.<\/p>\n

Fourth, if you have not graduated at the current school you are at,\u00a0 you will most likely have to sit out a year at the school you transfer to. If you have not been playing and are leaving because of that,\u00a0 are you ready to sit out another year and fight your way up from the bottom of the depth chart at another school?<\/p>\n

Finally,\u00a0 most times your transfer will involve you going down a level of play.\u00a0 Are you mentally prepared for that.\u00a0 You were at a Power 5 program getting the best of everything and now you are headed to a lower Tier FBS or FCS program.\u00a0 Are you going to be ok with the downsizing?\u00a0 The resources and amenities will be quite different.\u00a0 Some athletes really struggle with the move downward and we never hear from them again.<\/p>\n

Leaving,\u00a0 bailing out,\u00a0 transferring all sounds good when a situation is not going as planned at the moment.\u00a0 However,\u00a0 leaving one place to escape problems only to encounter them again at another can be catastrophic.\u00a0 The decision to transfer is not one to be taken lightly.\u00a0 Do your internal checks and do your research.\u00a0 It is a decision that can’t be undone and it’s one that must be a success if your football career has any chance of being what you hoped it would be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Chad Wilson – Editor – GridironStuds Blog Twitter: @GridironStuds At the end of each year,\u00a0 Webster’s dictionary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,767],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-recruiting-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gridironstuds.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}