Episode Transcript
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[00:01:11] Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of the Dugout Dish podcast. I'm Andy Kirakidis, joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How we doing, sir?
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Great. How are you?
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Good.
There's been a lot of, a lot of talk both on, between coaches that we've spoken to, between me and you, back and forth. We got some stuff on X, we've got some articles being written.
But I think that what's been in the news recently regarding some of the potential future changes for the ncaa, I think is something that we should spend some time talking about and what the potential impacts can be. I think we see on Twitter there's some folks out there that are jumping to conclusions that things are written in stone and all kinds of stuff. But the crux of the conversation today is the current state of affairs in college athletics has become controversial, to say the least. Whether it's the transfer portal, whether it's nil money, whether it's the age of athletes that are currently competing. You've got a whole bunch of stuff with professionalism with regard specifically kind of to, to NCAA basketball and the G League. And basically how are these rosters being populated, how kids are being compensated, how kids are, are transferring and the age of athletes and all this stuff is, is become, you know, very controversial and I think to a certain extent valid. Right. I think there's some stuff going on in college athletics that certainly needs.
I don't know if I have the answers to it by any stretch of the imagination, but you know, I have some opinions and some thoughts on it, but there's been a lot of stuff that's popped up in the news recently.
President signed an executive order which some people have gone out, said that that's already a done deal. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of legal stuff that comes along with that. The president of the ncaa, Charlie Baker, has made some statements recently about how the NCAA is going to really move forward to try to get some of this sorted out.
So we want to take a little bit of time to kind of dive into some of that information, unpack it and maybe talk a little bit about how if these changes do come to fruition, you know, what it does kind of long term for the, the recruiting landscape and how it affects college athletics. So how's that sound, Coach?
[00:03:28] Speaker A: Sounds great.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: All right, where do you want to start?
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Do the five years.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah, so I think one of the, one of the items that was in the executive order and I think something that's kind of been tossed around a little bit is.
Let me take a quick step back.
There's been a lot of legal movement across the NCAA in recent years with people petitioning and taking the NCAA to court around eligibility. Right. I think the, the famous one at this point, the one that seems seemingly has been the most impactful, is Diego Pavia from Vanderbilt petitioning to get some extra years of eligibility.
But that in itself, plus the age that some of these players are competing at. Some, you know, you got some 24, 25, and I, I believe even upwards of 26 year old kids that are continuing to play college athletics and they're getting five, six, seven years of eligibility because of some of the petitions in the legal action that's been taken.
One of the things that's been proposed is just kind of a solid five years. You get five years, so you step on campus, you get five years of eligibility and that would essentially be it. There's no gray area in terms of waivers. The red shirt is essentially kind of a blanket built in for those five years. And I think that's kind of one of the big top line items from the executive order, am I correct?
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Yes, it is.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: What do you, what are your thoughts on this?
[00:05:07] Speaker A: I don't hate it.
I guess the best way to describe it is like you almost get a free redshirt year unless you graduate and transfer for your grad school, which is obviously put in there for one league and in particular. But there's a handful of schools out there that don't offer grad school. So if you were, you know, to graduate and want to go play a fifth year, then you're more than capable of doing so.
The, I think it obviously changes college athletics that you have five years now to be able to go ahead and play versus the, you know, five years to play four. Right. You'd have five to play five. I think the one thing to note is that this is also for.
The executive order states that these rules are for schools that have 20 million in annual athletics revenue. So I, I don't know how many of those schools are out there. I would imagine that the, the vast majority of the power fours, if not all of them. Right. You know, I, I don't know how many mid majors out there are, are generating 20, 20 million in annual annual revenue. And obviously your twos and threes, they're, they're probably not. So what, what does that look like? It would be a question. Right. You know, is, is that only for those schools and if you're a, you know, Division 3 baseball player, are you under the old rules of you get four years or five years to play four.
Right. So, you know, I, I don't dislike it. I just think that it needs more clarity on, on who it, who it absolutely applies to and what are the rules for people that it does not apply to. Right. So is it, is this only going to be the power fours and a handful of other schools out there that, that generates some more money that a lot of schools out there don't.
But, you know, it's interesting. Five years to play five, you know, if you have 34 guys on your roster, if that's what we're going to stick to, you know, there's not a lot of turnover there. You know, what does that look like? You know, I think you might have another kind of roster crunch on your hands where, you know, you're, if you're only gonna have one transfer, you're, you know, you're gonna want to make sure you get it right the first time for the most part, because, you know, you're, you're not just going to necessarily be able to dump kids or if you're a kid, jump in the transfer. You can. Obviously you get one with this executive order ruling.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: But I,
[00:07:48] Speaker A: I don't know. Like, I'm very, I'm very on the fence about whether or not I think it's a good or bad thing.
I don't know that for five years to play four is the right answer. I just think that, you know, five years to play four is probably the better setup that we currently have.
I just don't know if I love five years to Play five. I think that it creates another roster crunch, especially with limited rosters and, you know, not just baseball and all sports and, you know, you're, where are they going to go?
And I like, are you banking on the fact that people are not going to play five years, that people are going to play four, graduate and move on with their lives, or are they going to play five?
So, I don't know. I like, I don't.
I think it's a starting point. I certainly think that it's a starting point for the conversation.
The reality is that this executive order, I shouldn't say the reality in my personal opinion, I don't think this executive order is going into place August 1st of 2026. There's going to be a lot of things that are. There's probably going to be a lot of things that happen over the course of the next couple of months that are going to tie this up and jam it up so it doesn't happen.
And I think ultimately, you know, this administration is attempting to pressure Congress into doing something about the state of college athletics to, you know, whether it's exempt the NCAA from antitrust laws and some other stuff that allows them to be able to kind of put the reins on, back on what's currently happening.
And, you know, in part that's, you know, we'll get into it, but that the funding, the federal funding is going to be tied to these rules as well. So if you don't comply with these executive order rules, then you're going to lose federal funding, which all of these schools have. You know, so there's a lot of things that's kind of how they're going to get people to do it. But, you know, I just don't know if I love the five, five years to play five and if it's only going to be 10% of, of college athletics, like, what are we doing with the other 90?
You know what I mean?
We're just going to tell the other 90 like that because you didn't go to a school that generates 20 million. You just get to play four. And sorry, you know, not that, not that it all has to be fair, right, or equal. But I just, I don't see, you know, I see more of a problem with, you know, with the transfer portal, people trying to transfer up after a year or two because, you know, hey, I, it, I'm good. So I'm going to jump in the transfer portal and try to go play at a school where I can play for five years instead of four. And then landing at another school that doesn't generate 20 million and you're back in the, you know, you're back in the pile and you're, you're playing for. You only get four years and your one time transfer is done. Unless you graduate in four years.
Yeah. And even then again, like, you know, you're going to have to graduate in four and go to a school that, where you're allowed to play a fifth year.
I just, I think it muddies the waters a little bit more. I, I think that, I think on paper when you talk about this and do it, I think that it's a novel idea. I think when you get down into the, you know, you get into the weeds on this, I think it can create more issues than you currently. Not more issues than we currently have. I think that we have a lot of issues, but I think that we're, we're adding more potential issues.
While it's not really going to fix anything from a roster perspective or an eligibility perspective, you know, I do think that 27 year olds playing college sports should not be a thing.
Go get a job, you shouldn't play nine years of college football.
What are we doing?
But it's the world we live in currently and it's happening. So
[00:11:32] Speaker B: yeah, I think the five year thing is interesting to me because to your point, I think it's a little bit of a slippery slope. Right. And I do think that they have to come up with an answer that is a little bit more blanket across the board. Because you know, when you're talking about general eligibility, like it's fairly uniform across the board, slightly different at Division 2 and Division 3, but like fundamentally it's kind of the same premise of you get, you got five years to play for is the general rule of thumb across the board.
And I think one of the things that you talked about and you brought up a really good point is if everybody all of a sudden gets five years of eligibility.
Yeah, that's a roster crunch issue because the attrition through a roster is going to be different now at this point and guys are going to be holding on to roster spots. So I think that's something that needs to be considered. But I think you maybe the best point you made, and I think it's, I think it's really true, is that I think the executive order is more about trying to get things moving because we've had the Score act go to the house that's gotten turned down.
And then on the same day that President Trump signed the executive Order, which you outlined a second ago with some of the details there around federal funding and the revenue and five years to play. 5.
Maria Cantwell and Eric Schmidt both introduced their own college sports bill.
So I think it's really just a mechanism to get this thing moving because there is some recognition from a lot of different parties. You're starting to see coaches come out and talk about, hey, this is crazy. You're starting to see, you know, which I can't his name slipping my mind right now. But the commissioner of the SEC came out and said this isn't sustainable, right? And when you have the SEC who has the most money and the most power in all of NCAA sports, whether it's baseball, basketball, football, you name it, right? Everybody wants to hate on the sec, but at the end of the day, they have the most money.
They traditionally produce the best teams and they are willing to fund at a level that other conferences and other programs typically aren't. When they're coming out and going, hey, this isn't sustainable when every single year the cost of a quarterback goes up a million dollars and there doesn't seem to be any legitimate end in sight. And I think what's ended up happening is they're starting to go, we can't keep funding the way that we're funding without this just completely burning itself down. It's not, it's not sustainable from a funding perspective.
So I think the big thing is to really try to get the ball rolling here. But I personally don't like the 5 on 5 is because I think there's too many other pieces of the puzzle that you have to consider to try to right the ship. I think the four on five, four years and five is a really good standard right now because it aligns with the expected matriculation rate for you to get your degree.
And then the other piece of the puzzle that I think they need to tighten up if they stick with that path is you have to make it a lot more concrete. And Charlie Baker talks about this in some of his quotes regarding this particular topic, is that you need to find a way to box this in. So things are a lot more concrete because one of the reasons that the ncaa, while they're still winning, the vast majority of these cases, they're losing more than they had in the past is because there's enough ambiguity and there's, there's enough one offs where some of these players have been able to challenge and get these extra years of eligibility because some of the ruling is so great, right? You've got, you know, you've got your red shirt, you've got your gray shirt, you've got your hardship waivers.
You've got all different types of mechanisms that these players and their agents and their lawyers are able to pull on to try to get these extra years. And if it's more firm, if the start in the end is a lot more clear, it becomes easier to litigate and it becomes harder to poke holes in. And I think that that's something that he's driving at. And I'll parlay into the next piece of the conversation, because you brought up the age stuff, is that one of the things that's been proposed is that you put an age limit on it. Once you get to a certain age, you're no longer eligible to play a collegiate sport. I don't know exactly what the number was, but we were tossing it around a little bit before. And 24 kind of seems right because you do have.
At least it's not odd for a high school athlete to step on campus and be 19 years old, right? I was 17. Most kids are probably 18, right? But 19 years old, say you get a medical hardship waiver, and you're there for five years. You're 24 years old. Like, 24 seems like a pretty reasonable number. Once you get to 24, you don't have any other, you know, you don't have any other options that you can try to exhaust. And I'll be very interested to see if they're able to hone in on that, because there are examples of the under age.
I shouldn't say underage. That sounds weird. Like the U20, the U22, the U20, the U21. Like, you see it across a lot of different sports. And you see it in basketball, you see it in football, you see it in.
Definitely seen in soccer, where the.
The upper limit from an age perspective is. Is a hard definition that if you turn 21 after this date, you are not eligible to play at this specific level. And I think that. That. That for me might be a better answer than changing the number of years that a player is eligible, is that you put a hard cap on the age and say, Hey, 24 years old, that's all you got, man. If you're not a pro by now, then you've exhausted your options to play collegiate athletics. And I know that some people have issues with that because at this point, you can make money playing in college, and you. You can make an argument that you're taking money out of people's pockets, but at some point we have to get closer to what the core of collegiate athletics was meant to be.
And we're getting closer and closer to professionalism. And I don't, I don't disagree with paying the athletes. I'm far from that. I actually think most of the kids should have been getting compensated for a long time. But I think the pendulum has swung so far to the right that like, we got to put a, we got to put a stop to it in some way. And I think for me the age thing makes sense.
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If you're going to have a nil deal, you actually have to do something for it.
That would be a fair market value is how they term it, right? So if you're gonna get paid, it's gotta be from a third party who's not representative of the athletic department or a booster or any of those things where now you can just kind of pool your money and pay people which they want to get away from. So I would imagine that under this they're trying to put rails back on the nil stuff which would then in turn drive prices down for what you're going to pay people.
But you know, I think the age thing is appropriate. You know, we shouldn't have 25, 26 year old kids playing college baseball.
We shouldn't. It's just what it is. It's designed for 17 to 22, 23 year olds to play, you know, if 17, if you're, you know, a young, a young graduate of high school and going, playing, but most kids are going to be 18, you're going to be 19, 20, 20, you'll be 22 when you graduate.
You know, there's no reason we should have guys that are three, four years older still playing college baseball at that point in time. Like you were in fifth grade when that kid started playing college baseball, and yet he's still playing college baseball. It seems absurd when you think about it in those terms, but, you know, I, so I think the age thing is actually a good idea. I don't know how you pair it with the, the eligibility of, you know, five years to play four or five to five.
But, you know, I think the, the NIL thing is something that they have to seriously curtail when it comes to how they're going about doing this. Because to your point, there's, you know, the SEC is well funded, there's a, you know, handful of schools out there that, you know, a lot of schools have collectives, but the money is only really available for your, your bigger sports.
And baseball, you know, cuts into that a little bit. But, you know, by and large, how many guys out there in baseball are making a lot of money outside of the power force, Right? Like you were talking football and hoops is what we're really talking about at that standpoint. So the NL stuff I definitely think has to be curtailed.
It's, it's certainly something that has been, you know, absurd in my opinion, for the last four or five, six years, where people are getting money for, you know, a substantial amount of money for signing a dozen baseballs. Right? Like we're getting 50 G's for signing baseballs. A dozen.
Okay, cool. Like that. That's not necessarily what this was designed for. It was designed for something completely different. And we've figured out a way to work in the gray area. And in some regards, I, I think people don't even really know what the rules are. We're just doing it. And if it goes south, it goes south. If not, hey, what are we going to do? But, you know, I think the NIL thing is definitely something that has to be figured out, which, you know, when you start involving the amount of money that's out there, from an IL standpoint, I think that that's where, you know, the government is going to step in. Whether you like it or not, they're going to step in and try to try to figure it out. So it's not there's a semblance of a, of a level playing fields and not where we're currently at.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: I think you, you see it in football and maybe it's just because it's more, more prevalent, some of the numbers seem to be a little bit more accessible, even more so than basketball. But you got guys who are playing college football who may never play in the NFL, who are making more than NFL players.
And I think that that's a, you know, and said I'm not against these, I'm, I'm not against these guys making money. Right. Like, I, I think you can make an argument that some of these guys like Cam Newton and Johnny Manziel and you know, I mean there's a long list of them that they didn't. And they probably got paid, but they weren't getting paid like the guys that are, that are, that are, that are getting paid now where, you know, you got, you got quarterbacks who are never going to sniff the NFL who are making four or five million dollars and hey, good on them. Like, I'm not mad at the, I, I just think the system is, it's odd and I, yeah, no, I, I could just got to be curtailed. Like I don't think it's sustainable for these schools.
Right. It's, it's been interesting. You've seen there's been a bunch of stuff on social media where some of the public universities, so your state schools. Right. I've seen in particular I've seen Rutgers, I've seen Penn State, I've seen Alabama and I believe I'd seen.
Maybe it was, maybe it was Texas Tech, but they kind of release their, their numbers, right? Like what their, their budget is, what's the revenue that they make off of those sports? So like your expenditures, the money that's made and then they kind of have your, your bottom line number for each program and the amount of money that's getting spent, some of which is most certainly nil money.
You're not balancing your books. Like most of these, most of these athletic programs are running a deficit and they're being propped up by one or two sports. And in most cases it's football and it's basketball that are actually generating the revenue so that the rest of these sports can operate. And I think that some of these ads and I think some of the commissioners of the, the bigger conferences are looking at this and going, the price of the players isn't going down.
So at a certain point the budget to put together a roster that's competitive is going to get so high that it's going to go beyond our ability to be sustainable as an athletic department.
And when that starts to happen, right, there's going to be the crowd that's going to go, hey, these guys are all just hoarding money, and everybody's just trying to make money and pay the kids. But I think the reality is, I do think we're getting to the point where sustainability of this model is actually coming into question.
And having some guardrails around what nil is, and it. Making it less of a pay for play, I think is a really good place to start. I don't know what that looks like. I don't pretend to understand how the financials work. I'm still, you know, trying to figure out the best that I can in terms of how. How the people who are giving this money are making money and still haven't figured that out. But it's a.
Hopefully they can come up with something that allows the payers, the players to get paid, because I think they should get paid, but also allows for things to continue to move forward and improve.
For me, I think the biggest impact that any of these adjustments that have been outlining the executive order and it's been talked about in both the Score act and as well as the. The bill for Maria Campbell and Eric Schmidt is what are we going to do about the transfer portal?
And I personally think the fix is fairly simple.
You get one free transfer. If you want to transfer again, you got to sit out of here.
I think that's the quickest, easiest fix to stop some of the roster turnover. Right? And a lot of this stuff that I think it makes is making it harder and harder to coach. I think it's making it harder and harder to build a program is that there's a free mechanism for these guys to go into the portal. And I know you see it in football and we've actually seen it in baseball in recent years, where you get guys that start off at a really good program, they're really good, but, like, maybe there's another tier they can get to.
So they go into the portal. All right, well, they go and they're good there. And all of a sudden, right? And this is not the fault of the players. This is. This is them reacting to the system is that, well, shoot, if I go into the portal now, I can have a bidding war for who's going to pay me the most.
Right? And it doesn't mean that you're even going to leave that school.
Right? You could be at name Whatever SEC school. And if you're a sophomore and you go and you hit 350 with 13 pumps in the SEC and you say, hey, you know you're going to pay me 150 grand? Well, you know, I heard that I could get 250from so and so. So I'm going to go into the portal and I'm going to make everybody bid for me and then I'm going to go to the highest bidder. Like, I don't blame the kid. For some of these kids, it might be the only money they ever get paid or maybe the only certain money that they ever get paid. Right. But they're taking advantage of the system, not being selfish, in my opinion. Right. I actually think for a lot of these guys it's probably the right thing to do. But if you didn't have that free transfer, I think it would make guys think a little bit longer about making those changes. Right. And then you just don't hop into the portal every single year to see who's going to bid for you or find if you can go find another uniform.
So I think it'll curtail a little bit of the roster stuff. And then that second transfer you have to think really long and hard about, which I think makes the first transfer all that more important.
Because the other side of this puzzle that people don't talk about is we all focus on the guys who get paid, right. There's a boatload of kids who go into the transfer portal who aren't going to get paid. And there's a bunch of them that are not going to play again after they go into the portal because somebody told them go into the portal and they might not be marketable.
So there's a couple different scenarios here that I think that the one year transfer rule could potentially help out not only the system broadly, but I actually think organically it could help some of the kids make better decisions. Because you do see kids going to the portal thinking that the grass is going to be greener, that they're going to get paid, when the reality is is that not as many of these kids are getting paid as people think. There's just not that much money going around. In college baseball. There's some programs, Right. That are dishing it out, like make no mistake, but we focus on them when they're the minority in college baseball. Right now.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: Yeah, we're making the exception the rule.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: I think the one year, the one time transfer, I think it would be interesting, I think an interesting caveat to it would Be if you like, you get one free transfer that's going to include your coach leaving or whatever the rule that they have where if your coach leaves, you get a transfer. Like that includes your one time transfer, right? So I, you know, I don't necessarily.
For years you had to really think about whether or not you were going to transfer. If there was a coaching change. We, you know, we went through it. You went through it multiple times when you were in college. You stayed at the same place, you had a great career and you know, you did a lot of cool stuff.
I think the easy way out is to be like, wow, my coach left and I get it. It's part of, this is a business, right? Like, and everyone wants to say, like, well the kids should have. And the kids do have a say, but you like that. My personal opinion is, I think that that should be part of the, like you're not going to get two because your freshman year they left and then you were really good, so now you're transferred to the third school. No, like you get one. One is the only, no matter what happens, whether your coach leaves, you decide you want to go, someone tells you you should go, whatever it is, you get one free one. That's it. It's like the, the, the Family Guy when Spider man saves Peter and he says everyone gets one. Peter, tell him. And Peter says, apparently everyone gets one.
That's what it is. You get one, you have one. But after that, like, that's it. If you want to transfer again, you are going to sit out a year. And I think it's going to curtail, you know, a lot of what you just said. But you're going to have to think really long and hard about whether or not it's going to be worth it to transfer out to another place to sit out a year and, you know, potentially lose, you know, you're not going to play, you know, and I think I don't know the best way to do it, but I would imagine that one of the better ways to do it would be if you transfer a second time. Like you're sitting out of here.
You can't practice with the team either, right? Like, right. We're gonna put some serious guardrails around people trying to transfer 15 times.
Now how policeable is that?
Depends on where you are. But like, hey, we're, we're, we're curtailing what's going on from a transfer standpoint. Like you don't get transfer 15 times.
And the other is like, you can't play. You can't practice. Like, no one's gonna, you know what, how much are they gonna pay you for two years now, three years now? You know what I mean? Like, it puts a financial, it puts a financial question to what you're. If you're trying to transfer in, get more money depending on the sport, they. Yeah, we're not going to pay you to sit up, like to literally sit in the stands for a year.
So you can come, but you're going to get $0. We'd love for you to come, but we're not paying you anything your first year.
And we can't tie up a scholarship on a guy who's not going to be playing. So you're gonna have to pay tuition and all the other stuff.
It really puts financial questions to whether or not you. This is what you want to do.
Right. So there's, you know, and I'm not, I don't. I am not in the school that student athletes should not be compensated for what they do. Like, or I'm not in that. That world. I believe that they should be compensated for what it is that they've done and do. But I don't think that it's something that I, I think that we can curtail it and bring it back to find a happy medium where kids are actually able to be compensated for what they do while also not making a mockery of the system.
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I'm on the mute button. Sorry.
No, I, I agree with you. I think the only thing I would push back on. Right. For the guy who wrote on the comments that we don't disagree with each other, I'm going to push back on you here for a second. Coach. Class, I would say I, I think they should be able to practice, but I think exactly what you're saying is that the reality is if, if that second transfer, you can't play and all you can do is practice, I can't waste the scholarship on you and I can't waste nil amount money money on you. So there's other things that need to be considered during this, this transfer stuff. Right. That I think to your point, it's going to force people to think long and hard because you don't just have an immediate get out of jail free card.
And for me, I think it makes sense.
I think everybody should get a free pass because there are reasons that things don't go well. Like everybody thinks people go into the transfer portal because they're trying to go get paid. Right? There's some kids going to the transfer portal and they're in there because the coach said, hey man, it ain't gonna work here.
Those kids are the ones who absolutely 100% should get a free pass. Because back when we played, which wasn't that long ago, still in this century, if you had to transfer, it usually wasn't because you wanted to, is because, hey man, like it ain't working here. You're never going to play. Or there's, you know, you know, personality issues, whatever it might be. But you know, every single year that I played in college, we had guys who left the program.
And most of them it was usually because they just weren't good enough. And it was very clear and if they wanted to go play, they needed to go somewhere else.
Those guys should 100 get a pass. They should, they should get a freebie. But if you want to do it a second time. Right.
Yeah.
Shouldn't just, shouldn't just be out there all willy nilly. So I agree with you on that. I do think they should practice. So that's my, that's my one rebuttal to what you said. The.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Yeah, but I think here's the reason why I say you don't because I think that there are going to be programs that are. Would stockpile guys if we have five years to blow if all these things worked out that are going to stockpile guys from a transfer standpoint and be like, well listen, you can't play but you can practice and we can get a lot better as a team and get you better by inner squatting and having a quote unquote roster of 43 guys, 45 guys.
Yeah, the hopes that, with the hopes that way, hey, we got some guys that are going to get a free transfer. We're just going to, we'll sort it out at the end of the year. Like we have these, we have these guys in the chamber if, if these guys don't work out and we'll just, you know, hey, to Your point? Jump in the portal. But I, like, I, I foresee there being, I could see people using that as a, in that gray area.
[00:37:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I could see it.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: Why not take them? Because instead of having a roster of 34, we have a roster of 46.
And you know, we can get quality at bats against guys that aren't going to play for us this year.
And you know, all of a sudden, you know, you have, you know, I think it's same thing, like, not necessarily you're taking advantage of the system, not necessarily in a, in a completely negative way, but you're. We're back to 45 man rosters at some places because, well, yeah, transfer here, we'll pay you and we'll just, you know, we'll, you can practice, you can do things, you're gonna get us better and you know, for that we'll compensate you and you can do these things and then, you know, you, Whatever it might be. And I, I just, I, I think that that's, I think you can put a stop to. Not a stop to it, but you can legitimately make people think of like, yeah, man, you can do it, but you gotta be on your own once the season.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: Like.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: And you could, sure, if you want to say, like, hey, you could practice up until you can do individuals, but you can't do team practice, whatever it is. And again, it's hard to police. But my point is, is I think that you can stockpile some people just like NDAs and all these other things.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: Now that's a good point.
That's a good point.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: I think there was another point I wanted to make and I forget what that was.
[00:38:41] Speaker B: Well, you want to argue tonight?
[00:38:43] Speaker A: No, it wasn't really an argument.
What else did you say?
[00:38:48] Speaker B: I was going to bring up the ghost transfer stuff because this is kind of.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Go back to the. What did you finish up saying?
You push back on me.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: I was just, I think I should be able to practice. But you bring up a valid point that like, there is a way to take advantage of that too, from a coaching perspective.
And yeah, I mean if you have the, if you have the means, if you have the means to just stockpile those guys, like, I think about it from a coaching perspective, like if I had four or five arms who I knew weren't going to throw in the spring and they needed to get their innings, like, I can practice way better because those guys can, you know, you know, the guys who threw a bunch in the summer, I don't have to worry about trying to fill those innings for inner squads when you shut four guys down because, you know, they went out to the Cape League or they pitched in the NECBL and you know, they got to their innings limit. And the fall is going to be a, you know, a season where you probably, it's more load management I guess is probably the term people would use. But that's, you know, that's pretty normal now these days where if guys go throw in the summer, a lot of times they don't have a full, they don't have a full fall. It's also why the guys are. I won't go too deep into this, but it's also why that's part of the reason you're seeing less guys go throw in the summer and stuff is because these coaches would rather have their guys throw on campus than throw in the summer because, you know, for a variety of different reasons. But no, I mean, you bring up a good point. And I think that also outlines kind of the difficulty of all this is that whatever system they do put in
[00:40:19] Speaker A: place, you're jumping the gun on me. I remembered what I, it came back to me.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: All right, go ahead.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: What do you do?
If we're talking one time transfers, my question is this. What are we doing with four to two to four.
Freshman year at a four year school?
[00:40:46] Speaker B: Yeah, the four, two, four.
Yeah. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the 424 is you start at a four year school, you transfer to a juco and then you go back to four year school.
I think you're. What if you started a four year school, you get one transfer period. The junior college transfer is, is moot.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: The junior college transfer, it's moot.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: But once you go to your second.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: Can't go anywhere else.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Once you go to your second four year school, that's. That's it. That's your spot.
[00:41:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: That would be, that would be my answer. I don't know if that's the right answer, but if you want to ask, and it's kind of across the board is like you already did your transfer.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: Yes, same thing.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: If you were to go down a level, if you're a Division 1 guy and you go to Division 2, you don't get another free transfer up to Division 1.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: No, you have to sit.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think, do we go back
[00:41:42] Speaker A: to the old rules of if you go up, you have to sit regardless?
[00:41:47] Speaker B: No, I don't think so. I think you get one free. You can, if you can go to Division 3 to Division 1 then. Good on you.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:41:55] Speaker B: Just like I think it's completely ridiculous that Division 2 schools go to Division 1 and they're ineligible to play in the postseason because they transferred up.
Same concept for me. Like you should. Year one free.
Yeah. Year one free.
Four. Two four. That's good that, that's, that's a good one though because that go to the pavia stuff. All of this starts with the junior college eligibility.
[00:42:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:21] Speaker B: Which for those of you who have followed us and have listened there was some hullabaloo six, eight months ago around. Well, junior college years aren't going to count.
That's not true first of all.
But yeah, a lot of this stems from junior college eligibility or at least some of it does. So yeah, one free across the board. That's it. Okay.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: No, I agree.
I was interested to hear your take on 42 4.
[00:42:51] Speaker B: Do you think I was going to go in a different direction?
[00:42:56] Speaker A: I didn't know what you were going to say. Honestly. I didn't think that you would waver off of the one free. But I thought you'd think about it first.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: Put me on the spot. I like it.
The other, the other form of transfer that I have to say I'm a lot less familiar with because I don't think it's really a thing in baseball. But it's this idea of the ghost transfer where guys are essentially, they're not entering the portal, they're essentially dropping out of school so that they can transfer to another school is, is kind of how I understand it.
And there's tampering involved with that.
What are your, what are your thoughts on this first of all? And then does the one year transfer close the gap on this stuff anyways?
[00:43:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I think if you end up at a different school from which you started and you're playing a sport.
[00:44:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:03] Speaker A: That's your one time transfer.
The gig shouldn't change if because you dropped out of school because you know you still have to be in good academic standing, you still got to do all of those things. I don't think it changes now.
And this is.
We're going deep in the weeds on this. So stick with me listeners.
I don't think. And this is a completely. This is not a hypothetical situation. This does happen, but it's not that common.
I don't think that your. You should get whacked if you're, if you transfer and play a different sport.
Leave your dual sport athlete, let's say like you. Really like you.
[00:44:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Football, baseball. Yeah, yeah.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: Like your Football, Baseball. And you played baseball in college and it really, you decided you really didn't like it and you want to transfer. You know, let's say you're going to go be a Division 3 baseball player, football player somewhere. Like, I don't think you should get whacked. If you like, I'm done with baseball. I want to go play football.
[00:45:18] Speaker B: No, I don't.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: I don't think. But that, like that, that. My point is like that. That happens more than most people probably think that it does.
But I thought of it with the ghost transfer stuff. I think if you leave a school. This is why I thought of it. If you are at school X and you're a baseball player and you drop out of school and show up at school Y and you're playing baseball, that's a transfer. You transferred schools, you're in a different place in this country playing the same sport that you were at in a previous place in this country, which would thus, by definition meant that you transferred locations and you were playing the same sport.
So I think that, I think that it's. That's your one free see you ever.
But, you know, I, I don't know how common it is in baseball. It is relatively new. I, I think you and I talked about this a couple weeks ago. Like the, this term that, you know, I haven't necessarily come across, but seems
[00:46:28] Speaker B: to be a football thing. But it'll.
Yeah. If there's a loophole, it'll spread.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
But like, I don't know.
Because it's all back door.
It's all back room dealing.
[00:46:45] Speaker B: Yeah. You gotta unenroll, you gotta get.
[00:46:48] Speaker A: You're gonna drop out of a school, you're gonna do this, this, this, and this. You're gonna show up here, we're gonna, you're gonna.
So that no one else has a shot at getting you. And you're going to, you know, enroll and be accepted at this school and we're going to take care of you here.
[00:47:03] Speaker B: Yeah. I think at the core of it is really tampering just as much as the transfer issue with the kid unenrolling and then enrolling in another school outside of the transfer portal window. It's the idea of, hey, they knew they were doing this. So these coaches clearly had contact with these players. So there's, you know, there was tampering involved in this. I mean, yeah, you don't leave.
[00:47:25] Speaker A: You don't unenroll at a school and enroll in another one and end up on the. The ball club team without having Prior knowledge of you actually knowing that that was going to happen, especially roster limits and, and the like.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: That's the other thing that I'm very curious and I don't know, we get back to how, like, some of this stuff is really hard to police, but I can say with 100% confidence that there is a lot of tampering that goes on.
Oh yeah. Across college sports. And it's, it happens in college baseball. There's guys who, their agents or their advisors are shopping. These guys out there.
Yeah.
[00:48:09] Speaker A: With the nil money that's out there, the rise of agents and advisors that have come out that are shopping other deals is way more prevalent than it's ever been in the history of this stuff.
So like, it's, it's a real thing. It happens. And you know, if you're not in this business, I think that you, you probably don't necessarily know that, but the reality is it's, it's happening. And I, I, I don't know this for sure. And we're off on a tangent here a tad bit from what we're not from the executive order, because all this stuff is relevant. But like, I think that's why you're seeing a lot of college coaches that are exhausted with this, who pay attention in this business are leaving and going to professional baseball because you don't have to deal with this stuff.
And you know, it's, it's unfortunate, you know, but at the same time, I think like, it's, in that regard it's come off the rails.
[00:49:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it, it kind of drives at the point that like, there's a lot going on here and I
[00:49:15] Speaker A: think even the people that are still in it aren't, don't love it. It's just like now it's the cost of doing business at this point in time. You know what I mean? Like, it's not, it's not something that people are like, yes, I'm gonna take these calls from all these guys and see what we can get. It's more like it's cost of doing business is what we have to do.
Yeah, I don't think they love it, but, you know, no, there's nobody that,
[00:49:39] Speaker B: that I've talked to and obviously we run in, in similar circles that loves what they have to do at times when it comes to this stuff. And I think a lot of people would, would, would tell you, like, you know, there's stuff that's going on behind the scenes that is not fun to deal with either.
And I think it's really hard to be a coach. I think that's the other thing too that people lose sight of here is that it's hard to be a coach in this environment.
[00:50:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the second that you don't like it, I'm out. Second that, you know, you're not going to listen to what my advisor has to say, I'm out. The second that you tell me I'm not good enough, I'm out.
Like when everything gets hard and, and you know, you can probably break it further down the, you know, at I would question, like, how far are you going to make it?
When things get uncomfortable and things get tough and it's not easy, how far are you going to make it?
Not only game in life, like. And I think that that's something that you know what this is what sport is designed for. And if you're lucky enough to play at the college level, you're going to have to fate you not. You're going to have to, you will, you will face adversity.
And how do you come out the other side? Do you tuck tail and run and try to find somewhere else where it's easy or are you going to go ahead and try to, you know, bow up and go be a guy who can work through it and come out the other side better for having done it? And you know, I think that this is a tough environment to coach in for the most part at most levels because the second that it gets tough and I'm not.
It's not the generation, it's the era in which we are playing and operating with the guardrails that are put around it that kids have an out to be able to do this instead of sticking it out for four years. And look, the vast majority of people do, right?
Yes. There are a lot of people you'll see pop up in the transfer portal.
[00:51:44] Speaker B: But
[00:51:48] Speaker A: you go to RPI or a Vassar or a Rochester or you know, school like that, most of those kids are going to stay for four years or more and get their degrees, you know, so it's, it's not everywhere but it's, it's. It's enough to where I think that it's, it's becoming more of a drain than it is a fountain. To quote Chris Farish on coaches.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: Yeah, this is tough and I hope we find a way to the we meaning like ldncaa and the different powers that be are able to find a way to just kind of normal that try to just calm the storm a little bit because I think it's just gotten to the point where it's. There's. Everybody's trying to take advantage of loopholes and the system itself has kind of lended it to this.
[00:52:43] Speaker A: So,
[00:52:47] Speaker B: yeah, I think there's some fixes. I think there's some stuff that's coming down the pipe. It'll obviously be impactful to recruiting at some. In some way shape or form as we get more details. Obviously, we'll talk about it, but given what was going on, I think this is a relevant conversation for today. So.
Got anything else you want to add, Coach?
[00:53:08] Speaker A: Yeah, if the NCAA or President Trump or anyone wants to reach out to us for our opinion, I'm happy to be on the committee.
[00:53:16] Speaker B: Yeah, we speak on behalf of all college coaches.
[00:53:19] Speaker A: Maybe we can. We can fundamentally change some Division 3 coaching rules while I'm there, too, so.
[00:53:25] Speaker B: Oh, let's not get started on that. We'll be here all night.
[00:53:28] Speaker A: This is my shot. Yeah, you know, happy to be on the committee to help move this forward.
[00:53:35] Speaker B: Let them coach.
That sums it up. Let them coach, baby.
All right, well, thanks for listening, everybody. Tune in next week. We'll talk to you then.
Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and instagram @e.emd baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.
