Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi already had his reasons to take issue with the transfer portal, given he lost his Biletnikoff-winning receiver Jordan Addison to Lincoln Riley and USC last offseason amidst what he asserted was tampering.
Narduzzi has spoken out the portal and its ties to NIL in the past, saying last December North Carolina QB Drake Maye was offered $5 million by two schools and adding it’s a “sad, sad deal.” He continued his stance against the portal this week, criticizing the exodus and subsequent roster overhaul at Colorado under new head coach Deion Sanders.
Sanders, of course, sparked controversy from the moment he was hired, telling Colorado’s existing roster to “get ready to go ahead and jump in that portal and do whatever you’re going to get.”
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The churn since then has lived up to that promise. 51 scholarship players and over 70 overall have entered the portal for Colorado, and 47 have joined the roster via the same means.
Narduzzi is unhappy with the sequence of events.
“That’s not the way it’s meant to be,” Narduzzi said at the ACC spring meetings, per 247 Sports. “That’s not what the rule intended to be. It was not to overhaul your roster. We’ll see how it works out but that, to me, looks bad on college football coaches across the country. … I don’t know how many of those 70 that left really wanted to leave or they were kicked in the butt to get out.”
Exacerbating the issue are claims from ex-Buffaloes of rampant favoritism that would have made it impossible to stay, and the withholding of film that made it harder to showcase to prospective coaches.
“I grew up in a profession that you can’t tell a guy that he has to leave based on athletic ability,” Narduzzi said, per 247 Sports. “I think he’ll be shocked that he probably had some pretty good football players in that room. When I got to Pitt back in 2015, I didn’t kick anybody off. Zero. Those are your guys. When you become a head coach you inherit that team and you coach that team. If someone wants to leave, that’s great. You don’t kick them out. I disagree with that whole process. That’s not why I got in the game.”
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Alabama coach Nick Saban has spoken critically of the portal in the past, while in the basketball realm Tom Izzo and Matt Painter have also expressed concerns. The Colorado situation seems like the most dramatic application of the portal to date. If Narduzzi has his way, that might lead to some fallout from the NCAA regarding how it’s applied.
