"Incentivize staying where they are": Josh Pate drops his idea to fix transfer portal in NIL-influenced college football era

NIL has transformed college football to an unprecedented level. It has been a boon and bane for players and coaches in many ways. Coaches have struggled a lot to manage rosters in the offseason owing to unforeseen decisions by top players trying to enter the portal in search of a school that gets them paid more.

This has caused a dramatic shift in the landscape of college football. While there haven't been any restrictive measures to limit the exodus of players, analyst Josh Pate seems to have an idea on how to reduce the number of players leaving a program.

Pate believes that instead of punishing or penalizing players for leaving the program, they need to be incentivized to stay where they are.

In his latest episode of the Josh Pate Show on Wednesday, he analyzed an article from The Athletic where they shared the idea of penalizing the players just like how the contract buyout works for the coaches when they try to break the contract in order to take up a new job offer.

Instead of punishing them for entering the portal, Pate believes they need to be incentivized (4:00):

“Don't put a punishment on going in the transfer portal. Incentivize staying where they are. How do you do that? Well, you way you do that is, since we're entering the revenue sharing era this year, starting this year, teams are allowed to, you know, allocate up to $20 million amongst their roster, not per player.

"But guys are gonna get paid a whole lot of money this year that they previously would not have gotten to play college football as part of the new revenue sharing era.”

Pate continued:

“It's in the interest of roster retention, in the interest of roster continuity, and it being a net positive for college football. If a true freshman at Texas is also a sophomore at Texas, is also a junior at Texas, is also a senior at Texas, because of the glue that should exist between student athletes and the programs they play for.

"In my ideal college football world, if you want to achieve that, why don't we incentivize guys to pursue that?"

Pate added:

"Just because you're going to get paid a portion via revenue sharing to play at Georgia, doesn't mean the freshmen and the seniors get paid the same amount. The way I would look at this is, I'd say, forget about punishing guys with a buyout if they want to leave Georgia and transfer to Oklahoma.

"It's probably not going to stand up to legal scrutiny, and even if it does, think about that, just think about the ramifications on the recruiting trail if Kirby lost a player and Georgia went after a buyout that was owed to them because that player left Georgia."

According to Pate, coaches like Smart could use this as leverage to retain the players by giving them incentives each year to stay with the program. This will better the roster management and retain top atheletes in a program.

College football and other programs will get additional $20.5 million in 2025

As part of the landmark House vs NCAA settlement, starting in 2025, each team will get $20.5 million for roster expenses and development of the program. According to reports, almost 75% of this funds get routed to football and the remaining share between other programs.

This will help football powerhouses to beef up their rosters with more money in the bank and coaches will get to lure players out of the portal like never before.

Players like Carson Beck, who transferred to Miami after spending significant time at Georgia happen to be prime examples of NIL-influenced college athletics. This trend is expected to grow in coming years. The 2025 spring transfer window will be open from April 16 to 25.