(ThyBlackMan.com) In college football, much of the conversation has focused on two topics: The College Football Playoff system and the recent opening of the transfer portal. College football got some negative attention after Florida State became the first team from a Power Five Conference (SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, and PAC-12) to not be selected for the College Football Playoff in its history. Earlier this month, the transfer portal has seen hundreds of college football players from several conferences and even divisions enter their names into the portal looking for a better situation for themselves to play college football. It really seems like college football’s version of free agency despite the players not being paid, even with NIL in effect.
Unsurprisingly, the movement of the amount of young men in the transfer portal drew the ire of notable college football head coaches such as Kentucky’s Mark Stoops and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney. Swinney, who is preparing Clemson to play in the December 29th Gator Bowl, made public comments regarding roster management saying, “Rosters are not the same because of the portal, because of the trend of guys not playing, and you can get in a bad spot pretty quick.” It is important to note that there is also movement from head coaches this time of year as well and not just the ones that are fired.
Some of the notable head coaches changing locations include Tulane’s Willie Fritz going to Houston, Troy’s Jon Sumrall replacing Fritz at Tulane, and Duke’s Mike Elko leaving for Texas A&M. Interestingly enough, Sumrall and Elko were at their previous locations only two seasons before leaving for new pastures. The story of Mike Elko is interesting in particular. In 2022, Duke gave him his first opportunity to be a head coach at the major college football level. In June 2023, after Elko led Duke to a surprisingly quality 9-win season in 2022, Duke extended and restructured Elko’s contract through 2029, including an escalated, elevated model for assistant coaches and additional resources for staff salaries. Surely, the recruits in Elko’s recruiting classes in 2022 and 2023 had reason to believe that he would be the head coach of Duke through their entire college football careers unless Elko was shockingly fired. However, Texas A&M had other plans in 2023 as Elko is now their head coach after he signed a six-year contract with an annual base salary of $7 million, which is a more lucrative contract than the contract extension he signed with Duke just months earlier.
For the Duke players of Mike Elko’s 2022 and 2023 recruiting classes who got comfortable with the vision that Mike Elko sold to them to join Duke, it has to be surprising that Elko left even before those players became upperclassmen who are juniors or seniors. Of course, money talks and also Texas A&M football is a better job opportunity than Duke football to win at a higher ceiling and to compete for a national championship. College football head coaches like Elko or Sumrall who leave one job for another while still under contract are not vilified like college athletes leaving one school for another in the portal even if they leave for money like NIL opportunities or a school that is historically a better program. As the NCAA tries to figure out a plan to pay college athletes and college football players like the employees they are, there should be zero complaints from anyone in college sports about player movement when head coaches make individual decisions that is best for them and their families every year.
Staff Writer; Mark Hines