High School vs. The Transfer Portal: How Recruiting Has Changed

All college sports fans are familiar with the stereotypical images that accompany the words "recruiting cycle". The house calls from coaches, endless piles of mail on the living room table, phone calls, promises, all of which have long helped paint the picture of the chase for elite high school players. However, the popularization of the transfer portal and the rules surrounding it have changed the way teams approach their high school recruiting. As rules change to benefit older players, and programs continue to recognize their value as reliable bets, the high school recruiting cycle that schools, players, and fans were familiar with is coming to an end.

The Old Blueprint

Talking about the recruitment of four and five-star players is always entertaining, but just about every fan understands what goes down in that arena. Every big athletic program has a legion of people to analyze tape, reach out, and woo a top-notch high school player. Far more interesting are the recruiting practices that help fill out rosters with players without all the stars next to their names.

Take former Lehigh and current Utah State linebacker Brycen Edwards. The linebacker played his high school ball in Fredericksburg, Virginia, eventually earning interest from universities like Penn, William and Mary, and James Madison University. Even with a handful of excellent prospects, coaches were not breaking down Edwards' door. "I went to camps and got offers that way." Utah State's newest linebacker said.

Boise State defender Boen Phelps is another fantastic example. After playing high school ball at Freeman High, a school that had 50 or so students in its graduating class, Phelps had to do much of his own advertising. "It took a lot of patience. I went to a ton of camps, just working hard and trying to get noticed." For a player whose most notable contributions came at quarterback, Phelps dealt with the added challenge of going through offensive and defensive drills to try to catch a coach's eye. The sacrifice was both mental and physical, requiring Phelps to adjust to a new position athletically while accepting a different role as a teammate if he wanted to make the jump to the next level.

For most college football players, this is the reality of recruiting. There are 264 Division I football programs (including the FBS), with an approximate total of 20,000 players. With only a handful of three, four, and five-star recruits every season, the majority of athletes have to advocate for themselves to get noticed. Recruitment out of high school, in reality, is a labor of love. It takes an extreme level of dedication, commitment, and perhaps most of all, patience.

That approach paid massive dividends for both Edwards and Phelps. Even after COVID waivers created a logjam of veterans, Edwards received a full-ride offer from Lehigh, in part due to his academic prowess. Things were a bit more circuitous for Phelps, who turned down a couple of DII offers to walk on at Boise State.

What Coaches Want Now

Notable differences will arise in what coaches are looking for in their high school recruits because of the newfound interest in the transfer portal. Of course, the players from powerhouse schools that have top-shelf measurables remain as desirable as they always have been. But for other recruits, the goalposts have shifted.

In previous recruiting cycles, experience was viewed as a potentially eliminating factor for players who did not reach certain thresholds. According to NCSA College Recruiting, any player looking to play at the FBS level should have at least three years of varsity starting experience, not to mention All-American level production. But now, the transfer portal produces players that have game tape from their college athletics, and production that overshadows anything that high school athletes have a chance to put up on a stat sheet.

Another recruiting site, 2aDays, now recommends that high school athletes begin to focus on their physical and mental development. Players who show the physical tools to compete at the college level can be taught the skills necessary to succeed, but you can't teach athleticism. That is why experience is becoming less and less valuable in high school. Obviously, recruits need to play varsity sports to be seriously considered, but the emphasis on physical capabilities is becoming more and more pronounced. Elite athleticism is becoming the best way for freshmen to carve out a roster spot, largely as a result of the thousands of more experienced players pouring into the portal.

Aside from athletic development, high school recruits have little option but to embrace the grind as roster spots dry up. Phelps and Edwards set an excellent example by their practice of nurturing relationships with coaches, going through camp after camp, and generally working their tails off to promote themselves. A wider and wider pool of high school athletes will eventually land on their side of the Venn diagram as the number of heavily recruited high schoolers shrinks.

The Business of the Portal

The criteria for evaluating the thousands of NCAA athletes in the portal, as referenced before, are completely different. Edwards, who transferred to Utah State this past offseason, put it best, saying that "the transfer portal is all business…they're expecting you to be one of those guys who comes in right away to take over the team."

With the proven play available in the portal, there are fewer question marks. Coaches can watch college-level film and use their contacts throughout their sport for firsthand reviews of a player. Perhaps even more importantly, at least in the headache department, portal prospects almost always have a level of maturity that exceeds that of a high school recruit. Edwards alluded to that fact by saying, "Leadership is a big part of what coaches are looking for. The ability to teach the younger kids, tell them about four years of football."

For programs looking for instant starters, using the transfer portal is a no-brainer. It is less risk for more on-court return, while costing the schools the same amount of money as recruiting a younger, more physically and mentally immature high school athlete.

The Rules: Stacking the Deck

A couple of other rule changes combine with the transfer portal to put high school athletes at a severe disadvantage. Now that NIL money is everywhere, upperclassmen are incentivized to stick around campus for as long as possible. The newly introduced age-based eligibility statute that seems likely to be passed into rule does high school recruits no favors, either. College athletes would receive five years of eligibility, no questions asked, if the rule is approved. That just means more upperclassmen sticking around for longer, and in turn, longer waits on the bench.

Yet another rule change is set to hurt the prospects of high school football hopefuls, especially those without stars next to their names. College programs are now allowed to offer partial or full scholarships to every single player on roster, making chances for walk-on players even slimmer than they previously were. It will be harder and harder to find players like Phelps, who spent two years as a walk-on before being put on scholarship by the Broncos. With nearly every roster spot being taken by a scholarship player, the odds for high school athletes take another huge blow.

In many ways, Edwards embodies many of the benefits older players receive from using the transfer portal. Edwards' name was floated around in NFL Draft discussions this spring, as he was even named as one of the top 10 FCS prospects to watch by Sports Illustrated in the fall. However, a late-season ankle injury that required surgery dimmed those prospects, with Edwards stating, "I never really considered the draft. With my injury, there was no way I was going to be able to be my best out there." Instead, he applied and received a waiver, one that allowed him to continue playing football.

The Utah State linebacker's story is a textbook case study in how the new transfer portal rules play out in favor of veteran athletes. An extra year in college will give Edwards a chance at another degree, a master's this time, an NIL check that the AVI Index measures at just under $500,000, and a chance to renew NFL opportunities. With age-based eligibility, Edwards wouldn't have had to go through the convoluted process of securing a waiver, making it even easier to stick around. With developments like these, it is no wonder that teams across college athletics continue to get older and older.

Semi-Pro Reality

As NIL money was introduced, few expected it to change the landscape of college sports in such a drastic way. Sure, most expected it to help big programs win more, but the ripple effect of hurting high school recruits came as an almost entirely unforeseen consequence. Rule change after rule change continues to favor the other side, slowly turning one of the former building blocks of college programs into obsolescence. The result will inevitably be a more professional set of college sports, one that feels more like a developmental league than a team of university kids. All that is left to the viewer is to decide which version of collegiate athletics they like best.