In the portal, momentum is not for sale
Nebraska may have top-of-the-market money, but that's not all there is to transfer portal success
Thirteen teams ranked in the top 10 of the team transfer portal rankings at either On3 or 247Sports. That collection of early portal winners can be easily broken into two categories with one exception.
There are the teams with undeniable on-field results to bolster whatever big moneybag is offered: Indiana, Texas Tech, Mississippi, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Houston.1
Then there are the teams where the promise of future on-field results can’t be directly refuted because they have new coaches: Penn State, Oklahoma State, LSU, Virginia Tech, Auburn, Arkansas and Kentucky. Not only can this group sell “be a part of the change you want to see,” it also has the starter-pack option where players follow their former coach and Iowa State becomes Penn State, North Texas becomes Oklahoma State, etc. Team rankings such as these have a hard time resisting this type of talent infusion.
The one outlier in both top 10s might be Louisville, which had the second-best preseason odds to win the ACC, started 7-1, but finished the regular season 8-4.
These are early returns from the portal, which still hasn’t been open for a full week, and the rankings are probably changing as you read this, but that core sample from yesterday points to an important factor in player acquisition: Money is essential—big burlap bags of it with dollar signs stamped on the outside, tied off with twine—but momentum matters, too.
Momentum is not for sale.
Wherever Nebraska’s portal haul ends up, it has to be viewed with this in mind.
