‘Everybody wants to know about everybody’: How college coaches react when a player hits the portal | Recruiting

Erik Chinander used to think the whole transfer portal process — from players leaving his team to trying to figure out who might fit at Nebraska — was pretty weird.

By this point, though, it’s become essentially a part of everyday life as a college football coach.

The Husker defensive coordinator, obviously, knows when one of his own players makes a decision to leave NU. And he knows exactly when the player’s name shows up in the transfer portal, too.

There’s a telltale sign.

“Your phone starts (ringing),” Chinander said at the outset of spring ball. … “When we have a guy go into the portal, as soon as you (reporters) tweet it out, my guys from everywhere from junior college to SEC schools are calling. And it doesn’t matter if they played really well here or didn’t play really well here. Everybody wants to know about everybody.”

Nebraska coaches, of course, are in the same boat. That’s a part of the process Chinander used to feel a little bit leery about, but not anymore.

“It was kind of weird at first, but it’s become pretty standard,” he said. “At first, I was like, ‘Man, should I call this (coach)? He’s probably mad his guy is going to leave.’ But the same guys, they call me. My deal is I want to help the kids and I want to help my friends that are in the coaching business. So, if somebody can help them and they’re a good guy and all that, I’m going to be very truthful with them and tell them why they left, what their pluses and minuses are.

“I think it’s very helpful when you have someone you can trust in that program that can give you an honest evaluation. But then you’ve got to watch the film. You’ve got to make your own choice.”

Nebraska’s assistant coaches this week have a break from on-field work and overall are in the middle of spring football, but no doubt are still working the phones along with the program’s recruiting staff when it comes to the transfer portal.

In the last week or so, three pass-rushers NU had offered verbally committed to other schools — brothers Grayson and Gabriel Murphy to UCLA and Jordan Domineck to Arkansas — but the Huskers are in good position to get TCU edge Ochaun Mathis on a visit this spring and other players have entered the portal recently, too, including Jacksonville State standout DJ Coleman.

On the offensive line, Georgia backup Owen Condon put his name into the portal on Tuesday and immediately picked up social media follows from multiple Husker staffers. Condon (6-foot-7 and 310 pounds) appeared in 14 games for the Bulldogs in 2021 and has made one career start in 22 appearances.

An interesting wrinkle: Condon was a four-star prospect in the 2018 class and hails from Oklahoma City. The Huskers, as it happens, have already added two other class of 2018 standouts from the Sooner State this offseason in quarterback Casey Thompson (Newcastle) and offensive lineman Hunter Anthony (Tuttle). Perhaps Nebraska will push to try to make it three.

In addition to edge rushers and offensive linemen, Nebraska could try to add transfers on the interior defensive line, at tight end, or at inside linebacker between now and the summer.

The Huskers have already landed 10 this offseason, nine of whom are on campus this semester. Kicker Timmy Bleekrode, who graduates from FCS Furman this spring and will join the program in the summer.

Outside of quarterback Adrian Martinez, most of the players who have transferred away have been reserves, young players or both, though linebackers Will Honas and Pheldarius Payne and defensive lineman Jordon Riley certainly would have been viewed as potential contributors this fall.

Those departures are part of the reason NU feels it needs to add to its defensive front via the portal, but that thinking can go the other way, too, where a transfer addition makes a player already on the roster consider leaving.

“Every time you take a guy in the portal, you might encourage somebody else that they should maybe look for another opportunity for themselves. But with this transfer culture that college football has created, if somebody leaves, somebody else is coming in. …

“It’s become more like the NFL. A junior left? You’d better get a junior to replace him. But you’ve got to look at, for every action, what will the reaction or potential reaction be?”