ONE Transfer ONLY? | This New Legislation Will Shock College Athletes

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]College sports might finally have the legislation it needs to undo what seems to be a situation that is headed down the tracks in the wrong direction. We'll get to that on this latest edition of On Texas football brought to you by Price Picks. I'm Jeff How joined by Bobby Burton live on location in Destin at the SEC spring meetings and Hank South.

[00:00:18]Bobby, uh we've got the legislation that was brought up today. Uh Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas who is the US Senate Commerce Committee chairman and ranking member. Maria Canwell, they're heading up the Save College Sports Act, uh, or Protect College Sports Act, I guess, is what it is technically called. Bobby, when you look through this, and I believe you and Hank were both on a Zoom call today when this was, uh, announced, Bobby, when you go through this and you look at the bullet points, what are the big things? This is a lot for people to sort through. If you're a college football fan trying to take something away, what should you really be taking away from this? It is a massively encompassing proposal in my opinion. Uh but I think you have to start with the transfer portal. Um and what transfers might look like. Uh there's a lot of give and take in this bill in my opinion. There's elements that I think make a lot of sense. There's others that make no sense whatsoever. That's typical of probably legislations of all type.

[00:01:18]But if you start with a transfer portal, uh the what the uh protect college sports act is trying to achieve is to guarantee athletes one free transfer without any kind of penalty. So right now they already have free transfer whatever they want. So they're actually taking away some athlete rights here uh by saying you can only transfer once without any kind of penalty. There are caveats to that now. They've already said if there's a coaching change, if there is a sport that gets discontinued, if you're a tennis player at at, you know, Tuskegee State and and they disband tennis, you can then go transfer somewhere else without penalty. So, there are a couple things. And then there's also one for grad transfers. If you start going to graduate school, you can transfer for free. So, there are a few caveats, but the one the limit of one transfer school per go is interesting to me um simply because it's actually taking something away from the student athletes that they have right now. What are they getting in return?

[00:02:29]Well, they're getting some protections later in this bill for medical expenses and as well as uh what I would call scholarship protection. coaches and teams can't just kick somebody off a scholarship willy-nilly after a single year. So, uh, biggest thing for me out of the gate is the massive all-encompassing nature of this bill and the number of things it tries to address, but if you start narrowing it down, there are a few key parts starting with the the transfer portal.

[00:02:58]Uh Hank, I know one thing that jumped out to you, and I think it jumped out to a lot of people, if you look at this bill, and I'm looking at the bullet points, uh section 110, mid-season coaching transitions, uh prevents football coaches and key football staff from leaving midseason to coach or otherwise effectively take over another FBS football program during the same competitive season, including through recruiting, roster management, NIL activity, or game planning functions.

[00:03:21]Hank, the so-called Lane Kein rule. I we think of head coaches, Hank, but you made a really good point before we started recruiting and it's in there.

[00:03:28]Key football staff and I I'll let you take the the floor take take the floor from here, Hank, but it's okay. By whose definition are we talking about end of the competitive season?

[00:03:39]>> Yeah, exactly. You know, is it is it bowl season? Is it your conference title game? You know, there there's still some questions unanswered there. in and as you mentioned key football staff, this is going to potentially prohibit a rising offensive coordinator from getting a head coaching job, uh, defensive coordinator getting a head coaching job. um it's it's going to push everything back and and and in that case and we were talking about this prior to recording.

[00:04:06]How does that affect the recruiting calendar to where you know now we have that one transfer portal window in January that I think everyone agreed you know obviously it was very quick and and and hurried but I think most will generally agree was a good thing to to then be able to go into spring without the threat of of that being a possibility later down the road. Do you have to move that back? Do you have to move around the calendar? everyone wants to, you know, keep the season from going into February, uh, or the the the end of the season going into February, but now, how do how does how does that rule affect and in and what constitutes end of season? And so, that that's going to be a really interesting thing that the the colloquial length keen rule that caught my eye. Another thing um, I thought was really interesting, too, was uh, reigning in these kind of rogue agents and in and making them register in an agent database. you know, it um it it sanctions obviously the these agents that are are obviously not looking out for the best interest, which you know, if you cover this long enough, you you've seen plenty of that and it caps their commissions at 5%, which I think is also one of these protections, you know, Bobby mentioned of um you know, you take something away in the portal, but you know, it's also adding benefits for the student athlete as well.

[00:05:13]>> Bobby, one key piece of this that I think this deserves some clarification is the potential to pull television rights fees >> and sports your sports media fees provided 75% of current FBS schools agree to do so subject to the bill's guardrails. I know there's a lot of caveats in there. Uh but Bobby, do do you expect the the SEC or the Big 10 to go for this because they've negotiated extremely lucrative television rights deals. The Big 10 with Fox and the SEC with ESPN. Yeah, I think so. Look, there's there's some constrnation over this and has been some question about it. Um, there is reporting out that that both the SEC and Big 10 would be able to opt in or opt out of this uh pooling of rights e even if there was a 75% vote that pulled rights. So, right now there are 138 39 NCA Division One schools.

[00:06:18]That would require roughly 102 I believe in in uh based on a Senate aid that I spoke to this or I I questioned this to earlier. I think that if we're looking at it that way, what's going to happen is you're going to have the Big 10 and the SACE opt out of pooling. They may vote for in favor of pooling though for everybody else. they just may not pull it themselves because Texas, Texas&M, uh, Ohio State, those programs have no interest in pooling with Texas Tech or Baylor or SMU at a lower level, uh, without some kind of outsiz uh, response from a or outsiz contract from a TV perspective. What's interesting as as we go down that that path is are the SC are the big are the ACC and Big 12 going to pull their rights together? Are are if they do, are they going to have to pull them with the MAC with the big the big west with Conference USA? What's to say they're actually going to be financially better off if they pull their rights? I think there's a number of different things here uh that are interesting.

[00:07:29]another t another TV deal. I do think that was a TV deal is they're requiring broadcast networks to carry a local game.

[00:07:40]Kind of like, you know, overtheair broadcast. The NFL makes, you know, I think it's they have their deal with CBS uh and um CBS and uh Fox for NFL games.

[00:07:54]They're saying that if it's a local game in Austin, University of Texas has to be shown over broadcast.

[00:08:02]I massive overreach in my opinion for all of this. There's a lot of overreach.

[00:08:07]I me you mentioned the Lane Keifin thing, Hank. That's an overreach in my opinion. How are you going to stop the offensive coordinator at the University of Texas from taking the a head job at the University of Wisconsin mid-season?

[00:08:21]>> Nor should you. I I just want to put that out there. I mean, that's like stopping somebody from going to get another job. I I feel like uh you know, we're in a you actually could hurt that guy's chances to getting a head job by making him an offensive coordinator in the first place because maybe a special special teams coach isn't involved, right? And so, and could be the head coach. A lot of this there, the devil will get into the details on this bill.

[00:08:52]Mark my words.

[00:08:53]>> Yeah, >> I think there's a lot in here that is an overreach. The one I do not think is an overreach at all and is helpful is the one you mentioned, Hank, and that's agents.

[00:09:05]>> Okay.

[00:09:06]>> Um, absolutely a great rule. I think the agent rule dropping them to 5% at most will help this the transfer portal as much as any rule you make because previously some of those agents were getting 20% so they're being rewarded for taking their players to other teams, you know, at a level that they shouldn't be. Make that 5% and all of a sudden that's a lot of work to get somebody somewhere else. You know, uh there's also rules in here about tampering, other things, Jeff, too, that that we can discuss.

[00:09:41]>> Yeah, we'll get into it uh a little bit more here in just a sec, but right now, I want to take this opportunity to remind everybody that this edition of On Texas Football is brought to you by Prize Picks. We're on the cusp of June.

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[00:10:37]Again, the code is HMA. Five gets you 50. It's that simple on the Price Picks app. And as always, please remember, play smart, play responsibly, play Prize Picks. Hank, there is some wording in here. One one of the things that jumped out to me is all of this stuff sounds great and there is some wording that leaves some wiggle room for some form of let's just call it what it is, collective bargaining for the student athletes. I don't know how you can have all these restrictions and guidelines and you're changing things without giving the student athletes themselves a seat at the table. So, I'm not saying this will be like the NBA or the NFL or the MLB Players Association against the owners, but we're when considering student athletes employees, Hank, that's a that's a bridge we're going to cross at some point.

[00:11:25]>> Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was a really interesting point of this is that they they just they wrote in neutral on whether you know employees >> they remain neut and I you know I saw some good reporting on this like it's almost a non-starter I if there's not any sort of collective bargaining agreement with this like yeah you're giving student athletes several things you know the medical stuff that that's great you know obviously the the the um the agent commission like things that can help them certainly but you you know, at what cost? So, you know, I'm curious to see how that's going to impact the, you know, practicality of this eventually passing. I don't know if you have, you know, more thoughts on that, Bobby, but um I I they made a note, yeah, neutral on on employees, which is like almost negates everything I I feel in my opinion.

[00:12:17]>> Yeah, it's one of several things, you know, to to Hank's point that I mentioned I said earlier, the devil will be in the details. This bill, the Preserve College Sports Act, will not go through as written currently. It may go through definitely several manifestations before it's able to go in. I think it leans heavily to the schools, still too heavily to the schools. You're taking away a player's right to transfer multiple times if he sees fit. And you know what happens in that regard? That's that's not necessarily right. If a player can actually go make more money somewhere else and start somewhere else, well, what if you know there there are so many little pieces to this and until you get the players in the room and you just dictate this kind of stuff, I feel like it's going to fall short. I do want to say this. I I think there's some good in this. I do think there's some good in this limited protection. If they if they made a limit on agents at 5% and just got that bill through, that would be a big win, I think. But instead, I think what they're doing, like they always do in Congress that I as I understand it, they try to package a bunch of different things so that each side kind of gets what they want. And when that happens, the bill gets watered down. And then we see uh a lot of what we've seen in previous past, house settlement doesn't work. Why? Because the real big dogs didn't get a pl place at the table and neither did the kids. Neither did the players that are going to make that money. That's just the that's just the the the reality of it. You can't treat everybody the same uh and expect uh this this this everybody to live by the rules. Like I just mentioned that broadcast that local broadcast rule if they pull TV rights. That means in the city of Houston, Rice is going to have to have every game broadcast o over the air. You think that they can make NBC, ABC, or the local affiliate carry that game when it's going to get point0? I mean, you know, reruns of Macyver might get more. So, I mean, I I think that there are levels here that to this bill that are going to be rewritten, rethought, etc. >> Yeah. I uh Hank and I as uh fathers of young children, I think we can agree there's some of that uh programming that will greatly outdraw some college football games that will be forced to be on in a local market. Bobby, I'll come back to you in just a second, but Hank, uh for final thoughts, again, you were on the Zoom call, you've had a chance to look this over, you've hit some of the highlights, but just your final thoughts, Hank, is what's top of mind for you right now?

[00:14:58]>> Yeah, like Bobby mentioned, I think there's a lot of good in this and pieces of it that that could certainly be of a very positive impact to college athletics. You know, there's protections for for the Olympic sports. There's protections for women's sports, the non-revenue uh sports, which is great.

[00:15:11]The agent commission, that's great. I I kind of like the transfer rule. I know that's not going to be very popular, but you know, it gives you a roster.

[00:15:20]>> I think it's popular for for the teams, >> right? For the teams. Absolutely. For the players.

[00:15:24]>> Players. For the players, exactly.

[00:15:26]They're not going to like it as much, but it kind of gives you a little bit of more continuity in your roster year to year. Um, one of the, you know, I think overall looking at this, it it you can see Cody Campbell's fingerprints on this in a lot of ways with the the the little provision, hey, no Super League formation, like you we we're all in this together. You guys can't, you know, leave us hanging. Um, the media pooling with the TV rights and, you know, 75% of teams agreeing to it or you know, there there's different things. I think for the most part, there's good things and there's things that should come out of this that should be passed into law. Uh but it absolutely needs it needs some adjustment. It needs some uh some rewrites in certain areas as well. But um yeah, I mean some some potentially groundbreaking governance which every everybody SEC meetings they they want rules. They want people to follow the rules. Um this is that but you need to you need to make the rules work for everybody in my opinion.

[00:16:23]>> Yeah. the uh the hateful eight I think is figuring out in the Big 12 that life without Texas and Oklahoma not so easy.

[00:16:29]This is what you guys wanted though all the schools you wanted this now you want to can't latch back on now this is the sandbox you wanted to play in go play in and Bobby I'll send this to you for final thoughts but my whole deal it's just kind of ironic that you know with whether it's the antirust protection you know the NCAA comes out with basically Congress doing something that they had a chance to do years ago and just sat on their hands and didn't do. So, my thought with the NCAA is you don't get credit for a problem getting fixed that you created. Like, you made the mess.

[00:16:59]Um, and somebody else is cleaning it up for you. You don't get credit for that.

[00:17:02]And I don't think you should benefit from that. But here we are. So, Bobby, uh, do with that what you will, if you want to comment on that or or not, but I I'll ask you this two-part question. Do you think this passes? And at the very least, is this a step in the right direction of what everybody wants, which is just some guard rails and some governance and everybody to understand who's making the rules, what are the rules, and who will enforce the rules.

[00:17:31]>> I think that there is a chance that it passes absolutely a version of it though. Like not in its current form.

[00:17:39]And there's no chance in its current form without some uh you know tweaking here and there. I just think some of these things are going to be untenable to too large a contingency to actually get passed. So therefore I do believe that it has a chance pieces of it to get passed. I actually would say that's what they should do. Um this whole notion of pooling rights and all that that that really shouldn't be part of this in my opinion. nor should it be uh what they're trying to do with the television networks um with broadcast television. I I just think that's an overreach to tell because a lot of people don't realize this, but ABC the local ABC affiliate in Houston is not owned by ABC corporate.

[00:18:25]They just have a a deal with a local television company or station owner that provides their programming. If if you have to tell those those businesses what they run on a Saturday, I don't necessarily think they want to be that that's not that's not conducive. So I think you'll get some kick some push back from the TV corporate partners. Not just not the ESPN's or ABCs of the world per se, but the Sinclair Broadcasting or those local affiliate broadcasters that say, "Hey, I can't I can't afford to carry Louisiana Tech.

[00:19:00]You know, I can't afford to carry Georgia Tech every Saturday in Atlanta when I have it. You know, there's other schools. there's Georgia competing there in that in that market. So, I feel like as we look at it and think about this, there are going to be issues uh that get discussed. Some of them be tossed by the wayside. Some of them I really hope make it through. I I really do hope they make it through. Uh I know the transfer portal is a big one. I don't know what I'm for. I know it seems like too big a reach on on this side to just say one and done.

[00:19:37]Um, but I am Do I want more stability?

[00:19:40]Yes. Just I just listened to Chris Delconte talk for 30 minutes. Uh, and he must have said the word stability 30 times is what they're seeking in college sports. Some of this provides that in my opinion. So, I I think it's a step in the right direction. I don't know if it takes it all takes us all the way home.

[00:20:00]I think we all agree the model is not sustainable right now, but hopefully this is a step towards getting what everybody wants. And what I want, I don't know about you guys, I'd just like to have an off seasonason where we're just talking football and not talking legislation or conference realignment or house settlement or anything else.

[00:20:20]That's just me though. I know I'm different from most of the crowd, but I I digress. At the end of the day, we will keep everybody here on the on Texas football YouTube channel and on our podcast updated as we get information, as we unwind this thing. As Bobby said, the devil's going to be in the details and as we unwrap those, we will break it down here on the channel and over to on texasfoot.com where if you're not a member, you want to get over there and sign up as soon as you can. We've got a limited time offer for new subscribers.

[00:20:45]$3 for your first three months of access along with the info coming out of the SEC meetings in Destin. Official visits are right around the corner. Big recruiting weekends coming up for Texas.

[00:20:55]We got softball in the College World Series, baseball starting regionals.

[00:20:59]Everything is happening on the 40 acres and we are on top of it over on texas.com. Again, for new subscribers, the limited time offer is $3 for your first three months of access. Make sure you take advantage of that as soon as you can. Make sure that you like this video, that you're subscribed to the On Texas football YouTube channel, and that you got those notifications set so that way anytime we go live or drop a new video, you're not missing any of our Longhorn coverage or breaking news for Hank, for Bobby, for Matthew behind the scenes producing it. For the entire Unex football staff, I'm Jeff How. Thank you so much for watching and listening. And until next time, hook them.

[00:21:32]>> Hook them.

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