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Mickey Joseph: Smaller schools should get buyouts from poached players
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Mickey Joseph has been on both sides of the issue. The Grambling head coach was once the LSU receiver coach and then an interim head coach at Nebraska. He’s used the transfer portal at the power conference level and had to combat it at the lower levels of the sport.
On Wednesday, he offered up a significant change that would help smaller schools in the portal era.
“We understand. I think the kids understand that if they’re here and they’re sophomores and they have a big year and a Group of 5 or a Power Five (school) approaches them and they have the finances to pull them out of there and I can’t match the finances, then, you know what? They’re gonna go. That’s part of it,” Joseph told reporters on Wednesday. “Coaches have been doing it for years, so we shouldn’t get mad as coaches when these kids make decisions to take care of their family.
“But I also think there needs to be a buyout. If they move up from me and go to a Group of Five or Power Five (school), I should get compensation for that.”
Though it’s all technically one division — the FBS — there are distinct tiers within college football’s top flight. Ohio State and Michigan in the Big Ten aren’t operating on the same planet as Toledo and WMU in the MAC. And what Joseph is suggesting wouldn’t be all that dissimilar from the transfer fees clubs pay one another in European soccer to sign players.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.