Let’s be completely honest — there’s not a lot that makes sense with the rules in college football right now.
Players can’t enter the portal until December, but they can quit on their team after September in order to save their redshirt and transfer at the end of the year. Oh, and by the way, they can put four games’ worth of film out there without it taking their redshirt.
Up until today, players were still signing National Letters of Intent to lock themselves in with a school, but that NLI didn’t mean anything when they spring portal opened up a few weeks after Signing Day.
There’s more chaos than there is order in college football right now, and sometimes, you’ve just got to laugh about it.
That’s what Deion Sanders is doing in Boulder, Colorado.
We recently learned that Colorado linebackers Trevor Woods and Jeremiah Brown are planning on saving their redshirts and sitting out the remainder of the 2024 season. Of course, Coach Prime was asked about the situation and what he thinks about the redshirt and transfer rules that are currently in place.
“It should be something, it needs to be a rule NCAA-wise to, if that’s your course of action (to redshirt midseason), they should let them go and start their next journey with whatever team that is that they’ve already been talking to, because they’ve already been talking,” Sanders said, according to On3’s Nick Kosco.
Then, Sanders referenced his in-state rival, Colorado State. CSU head coach Jay Norvell claimed WR Tory Horton allegedly offered $600,000 to enter the transfer portal, and that QB Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi also received offers to transfer.
After some smack talk from the Rams’ players before the game — which ended in a 28-9 win for CU — Sanders asked how in the world they’d be willing to stay at CSU and not take the money?
“Just like the two guys that we played several weeks ago at Colorado State. They said they were offered how much in the portal? How you were offered 600 and you didn’t get in the portal? Why can’t none of y’all ask that question? How are you offered $600,000 but you didn’t get in the portal?”
While he was having some fun with the comment, Sanders also shared why he feels that the current situation is terrible for the players and their teams.
“You’ve got to understand that I understand it and always want what’s best for the kids. I really do,” Sanders said. “Like that’s their prerogative. But you know it kind of puts us in a situation, because now is there a question are you redshirting for us or are you redshirting for you…
“It should be NCAA rules and guidelines that if you choose that particular course, not that our guys are, we should be able to allow you to go,” Sanders said. “Because if a guy is redshirting for himself and he don’t plan on being here, why would you want him here and he don’t plan on being here? That’s really not fair to him, it’s not fair to his teammates.”
Colorado is set to host Kansas State in a pivotal Big 12 matchup this week, with kickoff scheduled for 9:15 p.m. CT on ESPN.
