New transfer portal wrinkle: UNC football uses bye week to assess roster management

It wasn’t that long ago that college football coaches would use a bye week in the schedule to rest up players and rehab injuries, then get a head start on game-planning for the next opponent.

Welcome to 2024.

North Carolina did use a bye week — its second in four weeks — to prepare for its ACC matchup with Wake Forest this weekend at Kenan Stadium. But in what college football has become, the Tar Heels’ coaching staff also spent considerable time dealing with roster management and pondering which players might be on the team next season.

The transfer portal has altered the landscape in such a huge way. With the NCAA portal to open Dec. 9, teams must be aware of which players might transfer off their teams, who might be available from other teams, and there’s the part of the equation most coaches despise: How much will it cost to get players to stay put or to pull in a transfer to fill a need.

“That’s kind of the elephant in the room now, who’s going to leave and who’s coming back and how many are you going to have?” UNC coach Mack Brown said Monday. “It’s interesting now, that there’s a lot more talk about portal than (high-school) recruiting. It has changed that much.”

Brown said there will be a need to bring in some defensive linemen. Running back Omarion Hampton, he said, could decide to enter the NFL draft. There was much to ponder.

Brown noted that a year ago, the Heels were fighting for wide receiver Tez Walker to be declared eligible as a two-time transfer, even though Walker had played football at only one school — Kent State. The NCAA finally relented and allowed all two-time transfers, including Walker, to be immediately eligible.

“And here we are, we’ve got guys who are in their fifth school,” Brown said. “It has changed so much and it continues to change daily.

“We’ve also got to look at revenue-sharing and what that means, and how much money do you get and how do you distribute the money to the players? … Coaches are going to have a better job of evaluation than ever before because recruiting (transfers) is going to become more about evaluation than it is recruiting, because you’ve got to figure out who you want, and you’ve got to pay them.”

NIL and ... a salary cap?

Brown said in talking to the players last week, the UNC staff identified no one who would confirm they were thinking of transferring or planned to transfer once the portal opens next month. Some of that, he noted, could change once some of the players’ “agents” get involved.

Another proposed change with big implications, Brown said, will be if some form of “salary cap” is associated with the NCAA revenue-sharing plan for college athletics.

Each school, Brown said, would decide how much of that revenue would be given to football.

“With the guys on your team, you’re going to have to decide who gets paid more,” Brown said. “There’s going to be salary caps and you can’t pay them all the same. You’re actually going to have to say, ‘This safety is going to get this much money, so this safety is going to get less.’ And, ‘I’m sorry, if you don’t like it, transfer.’

“So not only are you going to have to do a great job of evaluating them before they get here, but you have to do a great job of evaluating who’ve you’ve got and then you’re got to develop who you’ve got. And in the portal, just having money is not going to be the answer. You’ve got to have the money. You’ve got to make the right decisions in the portal, then you have to spend your money properly.”

Oh right, this week’s game

Having had those conversations, the Tar Heels (5-4, 2-3 ACC) now are in game-week mode. Wake Forest (4-5, 2-3), like UNC, will have a transfer starting at quarterback — redshirt junior Hank Bachmeier.

A former 4-star prep recruit out of California, Bachmeier began his college career at Boise State, then moved to Louisiana Tech and now is at Wake. He’s 25 years old.

UNC impressively won road games at Virginia and Florida State after the Heels’ first bye week, and now has a goal of winning out in the regular season and then bidding for a ninth win in a bowl.

“That’s my total focus right now,” Brown said.

The Heels have had some tough losses this season and were humbled in a 70-50 beating by James Madison. Wide receiver Tylee Craft died of cancer at 23. It has been a lot to handle, for everyone at UNC.

“Right now, this is a tough team,” Brown said. “They’ve had a bunch of stuff thrown at them. They’ve had negative talk, they’ve had people who have thrown them out, they’ve lost a player, they’ve had players sick and hurt. They’re on their third quarterback (Jacolby Criswell) who now is playing as well as most quarterbacks in the country.

“So they’ve taken every negative thing that has happened to them and over the last two weeks turned it into a positive. … I’m really impressed with this team. I’m impressed with how the coaches have handled it. They’ve been positive, they’ve been upbeat. They’ve had energy. That’s why I’m really excited about watching us play the last three weeks.”