Recent trend of QB transfers isn’t about fortitude — it’s about fairness

When word filtered out that Husky quarterbacks Jacob Sirmon and Colson Yankoff had entered the NCAA’s transfer portal, a fair amount of “transfer shaming” was directed their way on social media.

They didn’t have the fortitude to stick it out and fight for playing time, according to this line of thinking. When the going got tough, they split.

But that point of view is not only unfair, it’s passé.

The world is changing rapidly in college football, with quarterbacks at the forefront of a new freedom in player movement that would have made Bear Bryant — or Don James, for that matter — cringe.

Sirmon has since pulled his name from the portal, it appears, and will be returning to the UW for his sophomore season. But Yankoff, if he indeed changes schools, joins a slew of quarterbacks both in the Pac-12 and nationwide who have landed in new programs, or are in the process of doing so. That includes many prominent names, as well as even more QBs who were highly touted coming out of high school — like Yankoff and Sirmon — but couldn’t gain traction in their old programs, for whatever reason.

It’s not quite collegiate free agency, the notion of which has sent Dabo Swinney and other coaches into a dither, but it’s edging closer. Players who have graduated are allowed to transfer without sitting out a season, the vehicle that got Vernon Adams to Oregon and Gardner Minshew to Washington State, and which more and more schools are aiming to exploit. The latest examples include former Alabama standout Jalen Hurts moving on to Oklahoma, former Notre Dame starter Brandon Wimbush transferring to Central Florida, and ex-Clemson No. 1 Kelly Bryant taking up residence at Missouri.

Last October, the NCAA changed its transfer rules to allow athletes to enter their names into the futuristic-sounding “transfer portal.” That precludes players from being blocked in their efforts to change schools by coaches or administrators, and it gives other schools a means to initiate contact without having to bend the rules.

As undergraduates, such players technically have to sit out a year after transferring. Ah, but here’s another new wrinkle — increasingly, the NCAA is granting waivers to players who apply for one, under various grounds, that allow them to play immediately. This spring, Tate Martell’s hardship waiver regarding his transfer from Ohio State was approved, allowing him to play immediately at Miami. Similar requests went in favor of Justin Fields (from Georgia to Ohio State) and Jack Tuttle (Utah to Indiana).

All three will thus be eligible to play in 2019, when the Huskies will be the beneficiary of another quarterback who, like Fields, transferred from Georgia once Jake Fromm solidified his hold on the starting job. (Eason had to sit out the 2018 season).

Yankoff no doubt will be searching for a school that both fits his skill set as the No. 5-ranked dual-threat QB by 247 Sports when he came out of Hayden, Idaho, and provides a better opportunity for immediate playing time.

Many coaches believe this trend will be the undoing of college football as we know it. Swinney predicted “total chaos.” But you know what? It’s time for some of the balance of power to shift a bit to the players, the unpaid labor in this billion-dollar industry. If coaches can switch jobs on a whim — Manny Diaz lasted 17 days at Temple last December before leaving that school high and dry to take the Miami job — why can’t players seek out better situations?

It often is a boon to both players and schools. The last two Heisman Trophy winners, Baker Mayfield (from Texas Tech to Oklahoma) and Kyler Murray (from Texas A&M to Oklahoma) were transfers.

We all know what Minshew meant to WSU, and now they will try again with Eastern transfer Gage Gubrud. More than 60 quarterbacks, in fact, have entered the transfer portal. Two years ago, the national title game featured Clemson’s Bryant squaring off against Alabama’s Hurts. Both will be at different schools in 2019.

This is hardly a new phenomenon, by the way. Just looking at the Huskies, their glittering recruiting class of 1993 resulted in two decorated quarterbacks eventually transferring — Shane Fortney to Northern Iowa and Mike Smith to San Diego State.

In February of 2018, Swinney addressed the possibility of loosening the transfer rules by harrumphing, “What we’re trying to create is no consequences. We want a society with no consequences. You deal with young people, sometimes young people need to learn how to hang in there a little bit.”

Certainly, highly recruited quarterback Jeff Lindquist from Mercer Island was rightfully lauded for sticking it out with the Huskies even after he lost his starting job to Cyler Miles and then was beaten out by true freshman Jake Browning. Eventually, Lindquist converted to tight end, graduated with a degree in business finance, and went on to pursue a business career rather than a football one.

But how can you blame quarterbacks for wanting to play, particularly when they are roadblocked at their school? Hurts was celebrated for sticking it out at Alabama when he lost his job to Tua Tagovailoa, but now he’s gone, too.

Colleges over-recruit at the quarterback position to give themselves depth. They do this at every position, but QB is the spot where a single person is anointed and backups rarely play. When a highly recruited player, who has dreamed his whole life of playing college football, finds himself buried in an untenable situation, why shouldn’t he be able to seek out a better spot?

Sometimes, circumstances change. For instance, when Yankoff and Sirmon committed, Eason had yet to transfer to UW. With the possibility that Eason might stay two years, his arrival dramatically changed the landscape for them.

It’s not a question of fortitude. It’s a question of reality, of fairness, and of a new dynamic in college football that finally is giving players some warranted freedom.