What were the rules for players 15+ years ago who wanted to transfer?

Now it seems a quarter of every teams roster every year are just being swapped out with other school’s players lol. Never thought it would get this wild.

I'll need some help, but as I recall:
- if a player went the JUCO route he could become eligible immediately at another school
- HCs had to release transfers to conf schools, e.g., Phelon Jones who went from us to Bama after '08. He left college with three natty rings. Les released him because of family health issues I think.
- Early grads were immediately eligible, e.g., Burrow
- Inter-conf transfers had to sit out a year

TJ Finley would have to have two helmets

quote:

---

TJ Finley would have to have two helmets

---

TJ is overqualified for the Senior Bowl. He should be in the Ph.D. Bowl next year with all 8 schools hydro dipped on his helmet.

quote:

---

The blue/grey helmet nowadays would be 100% stickers

---

They need to go back in that direction. One transfer under current portal rules after freshman year. Any time after that, you must sit out a year or you must get a release from your current school (for players that are getting processed and choose to leave).

quote:

---

You had to sit out a year unless you were a graduate.

---

Unless you went down a level or more. Then you could play immediately. It's why some kids would go to JUCO or FCS schools for 1 year, to continue playing before finding another school.

quote:

---

Coaches could block certain transfers.

---

That was usually intraconference transfers and varied by conference. The SEC had that for a long time, even initially in the early portal era.

quote:

---

Certainly need to ban intra-conference transfers

---

The reason the SEC removed that was that players were transferring out of the SEC into other power conferences. As a whole, they considered it not worth the risk of losing good players from the SEC while bolstering conferences like the Big10, who did have the same restrictions.