With early Signing Day behind him and the portal open, Penn State coach James Franklin met with his current quarterbacks last week to talk about SMU, the Nittany Lions’ first-round playoff opponent coming to town Saturday.
A rapid reality set in when Franklin realized backup quarterback Beau Pribula was pulled into the transfer portal a week before the team’s first College Football Playoff appearance. That hit was offset by news from starter Drew Allar that he was returning to Penn State, resisting the pull of playing in the NFL for one more year.
“He’s a man’s man. Like, came into my office, had multiple conversations with me about this process. We talked last week, had no intentions of leaving,” Franklin said Monday. “But we’ve got problems in college football. And I can give you my word — Beau Pribula did not want to leave our program and he did not want to leave our program until the end of the season.”
Pribula, who will not participate in bowl practices or preparation this week, told Franklin he felt like he was put in a “no-win situation” because of the timing of the playoff preparation and the potential opportunities awaiting in the transfer portal.
“I agree with him,” Franklin said, “most importantly, for Beau Pribula. I don’t think it’s in the best interests of the student-athlete. I don’t think it’s in the best interests of college football. But I think that’s our challenge right now, right? Who is really running college football and making the best decisions for the student-athletes and for our sport as a whole?”
“Beau should not be put in this position. … To have a transfer portal/free agency going on right in the middle of the playoffs, there’s just a lot of things that don’t really make sense.”
Franklin said he considered making concessions to the blanket portal policy at Penn State that makes entry into the transfer portal a formal goodbye to the team. But he said Pribula realized he wouldn’t be able to prepare for the game “like the starter” as he has all season while also arranging and taking visits elsewhere.
Indiana, the No. 10 seed, is also in the playoff with a visit to Notre Dame on Friday in the first game of the 12-team bracket. But because of the makeup of the college football calendar with early Signing Day and the transfer portal opening hours after bowl announcements and the playoff bracket reveal, the Hoosiers needed a week to realize they were still going.
“I’m glad that week is behind us,” Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti said, outlining his long nights followed by early arrivals — 4:30 a.m. ET — “because you’re dealing with portal evaluations, official visits, and still opponent prep to some degree. Then you’re dealing with your staff and your player retention as well.”
Timing of the recruiting calendar and transfer portal open and close dates are subject to change, but Cignetti admitted he doesn’t have the right answer.
“When you look at it from a player’s perspective, everybody starts school in January, so guys that are switching schools need to have the opportunity to visit prospective schools in December, but yet seasons end at the end of November, championship games the first week of December, and there’s always going to be bowl games, and now there’s the expanded playoff,” Cignetti said. “I don’t really know the answer to that. I don’t think it’s a simple situation, and if it was, it would be remedied by now.”
Franklin said college football could start by electing a commissioner.
“I think it’s pretty obvious we need that. We need somebody running college football,” he said. “We need somebody that is not biased based on a conference and that is out of the financial impacts of it as well.”
