NIL and Transfer Portal Have Made College Football More Competitive

The NIL and transfer portal era are giving college football fans plenty of upsets.

Alabama Crimson Tide wide receiver Ryan Williams (2) runs in a touchdown backwards after a long reception against the Vanderbilt Commodores during their game at Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville, Tenn., Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024. / Denny Simmons / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

With all of the changes with NIL and the transfer portal, college football is in a strange place. Many believed that when NIL was introduced, the top teams in the nation would manhandle everybody else.

While that isn't necessarily false, there have been many upsets throughout the 2024 season that show the competitiveness of college football. 

The transfer portal now allows players to leave big-name programs and attend a smaller school for a year or two before transferring back to a P4 university. That could even be the case for a player transferring in-conference.

Take the Vanderbilt vs. Alabama game on Saturday night; it makes perfect sense.

A player at Alabama, who was once a five-star recruit, might not play much. He could then head to a school like Vanderbilt for a year or two before transferring back to the top of the SEC pyramid and help the Commodores beat some of the top teams in the country along the way. 

Nonetheless, that helps improve the typically below-average teams.

Saturday offered many upsets, including Vanderbilt beating Alabama. On top of that, Tennessee also dropped a contest to unranked Arkansas. 

It's not that Arkansas shouldn't compete with programs like Tennessee, considering they're also in the SEC, but these conference games are getting tougher and tougher to predict. 

There was almost another disaster late Saturday night, as Miami came back against Cal, helping the Hurricanes maintain their top 10 national ranking. 

But all the craziness in college football leads to one thing: NIL and the transfer portal might be making every team in the country more competitive.

It's also something the College Football Playoff committee will have to consider when picking the 12 teams. Does Alabama not deserve to get in because they lost to Vanderbilt? If that's the case, does Georgia not get in because they lost to Alabama?

There's plenty to think about, but Manny Navarro of The Athletic outlined it perfectly.

"Does surviving two close calls against 3-3 Virginia Tech or 3-2 Cal mean the Hurricanes are not worthy of being ranked among the five or six best teams in college football? Not at all. If we’ve learned anything through the first seven weeks of this season, it’s that winning conference games isn’t as easy as maybe it used to be in the portal era."

It'll be interesting to see if the NCAA makes any changes to NIL and the portal, but if you're a fan of upsets, this might be the best time for college sports.