"A cut-throat business": Florida HC Billy Napier and other SEC coaches' take on bending transfer portal rules

Florida coach Billy Napier's comments on “tampering” has been one of the major highlights as the SEC Media Days commenced Monday. Napier had a lot to say about player transfers and how schools are finding their way around the NCAA rules.

The transfer portal has been active with not less than 3,200 players entering the transfer portal from August 2022 through May 2023.

This overwhelming scale of activity has become a cause for concern. Some player movements are raising questions about tampering before the opening of the transfer portal. Tampering violates NCAA rules. Rules violations are not new in the competitive world of college football, anyway.

Napier believes “tampering's real.” He puts it as vividly as it can get.

“This is a cut-throat business,” he said.

Napier is frustrated after losing 26 players to the transfer portal during the offseason. Only half of that number arrived via the same means. Two starters in his offensive line, Michael Tarquin and Than White, were part of the exodus.

Billy Napier is not alone in his frustration. Several other Southeastern Conference coaches have tales of tampering to tell.

“Teams have people on their staff that go out and watch the opposing field right now, how they look, how they run," Georgia Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart said. "They're surveying the field for the portal.”

What did Billy Napier and his SEC peers propose as a solution?

What can the solution to this mutual concern be? Coaches have varying ideas on how it can be stopped.

Texas A&M's Jumbo Fisher wants severe measures.

“If you get caught and it's proven, there should be some severe penalties,” Fisher said.

How severe should the penalties be though? Would it be enough to simply impose fines or suspend coaches?

Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin has a specific example framework in mind:

“You've got to have major penalties like the NFL.”

One might suggest, since coaches know about these tampering activities, why don't they simply rat their colleagues out? The answer is not as straightforward as one might think. Pat Narduzzi of Pittsburgh publicly cried foul when Jordan Addison transferred to USC in 2022.

But like Billy Napier asked, “What's come of it?”

“We're going to control what we can control at the University of Florida, and that's our player experience,” Napier said.