Nick Saban might not like the transfer portal rules, but he’s mastered them
TYLER SISKEY WANTS to be clear: He doesn’t think Alabama coach Nick Saban is hypocritical when he says something is bad for college football and then goes out and does the exact thing he was complaining about. Siskey, who worked for Saban in his player personnel department from 2013 to ’14, knows his former boss to be a pragmatic man.
So when Saban raised a red flag about the unintended consequences of the transfer portal back in 2019, Siskey heard genuine concern for the state of the sport. Parity might be a myth in the modern NCAA, but it’s a myth Saban holds dear. And the portal, to Saban’s way of thinking, threatens the notion of competitive balance because it allows programs to poach players from struggling teams.
“So is that going to make the rich get richer?” Saban asked reporters during a news conference last year. “I don’t know.”
To Siskey and those connected to Alabama over the past decade, Saban’s question doubled as a warning — one he’d heard before.
“He’s telling you the truth about this not being a good thing,” Siskey said. “But he’s got the rules and he’s going to follow them.”
What’s more, Siskey added, Saban is adept at turning rules into an advantage.
“You know, he didn’t like spread offenses, either,” Siskey continued. “But you see what they’ve done.”
Saban once looked at the proliferation of spread offenses — with their quick tempo and offensive linemen running downfield — and asked, “Is this what we want football to be?” He was roundly mocked at the time. But then he went out and hired Lane Kiffin as offensive coordinator and told him to put his foot on the gas. Almost overnight, Alabama started producing some of the most dynamic offenses in college football.
“If that’s how the game’s going to be played,” Siskey said, “he’s going to play it.”
And he’s probably going to play it better than anyone. While Saban might dislike what the portal is doing to college football, that didn’t stop him from mastering it this past offseason, using it like NFL free agency but without a pesky salary cap. Forget taking unproven talent or drafting from the lower levels of football. He aimed higher.
When offensive tackle Evan Neal, running back Brian Robinson Jr., cornerback Josh Jobe and receivers John Metchie and Jameson Williams left via the NFL draft after last season, Alabama replaced them with proven Power 5 players. It signed offensive tackle Tyler Steen, who started 33 consecutive games at Vanderbilt; running back Jahmyr Gibbs, an All-ACC selection at three different positions at Georgia Tech; cornerback Eli Ricks, a former top-50 prospect and All-American at LSU; and wide receivers Jermaine Burton and Tyler Harrell, starters and high-level producers at Georgia and Louisville, respectively.
Siskey laughs at the absurdity of such a haul. Gibbs is playing his way into Heisman Trophy consideration after racking up 206 yards and two touchdowns against Arkansas last Saturday.
“Saban’s the best at what he does for a reason, right?” Siskey said.
A COLLEGE HEAD coach in the Southeast leans back in his chair and points to a cell phone sitting face up on his desk. Every day, he says, he gets calls on behalf of college players around the country — from former high school coaches, from trainers, from so-called mentors. He recounts the gist of every conversation: “Hey, So and So isn’t happy there.”
It’s the first month of the college football season, the transfer window is closed to non-graduates, but players are already shopping outside the portal for potential destinations. The coach says there are all these “underground connections” that lead to players’ next schools. “How tangled up that is, you go, ‘Whoa,'” he says.
Take Alabama. Steen went to the same high school in South Florida as safety Jordan Battle and outside linebacker Dallas Turner. Burton knew quarterback Bryce Young from California. Ricks played with Young at Mater Dei High School.
Gibbs, it turns out, was originally recruited by Alabama out of Dalton High School in Georgia. He was also offered a scholarship and recruited by North Carolina running backs coach Robert Gillespie, who joined the Alabama staff in 2021.
A Georgia Tech source said the staff was deflated when it learned that Gibbs — the team’s most talented player — was planning to leave. But they didn’t get the sense he was entering the portal for money via name, image and likeness opportunities. “The kid just wanted to win,” the source said.
But that same source said the transfer landscape is changing and growing more “out of control” with personnel departments keeping lists of potential transfer targets with geographical or personal connections to the team.
Less than two years ago, when the NCAA allowed players to transfer once with immediate eligibility and the portal exploded with activity, coaches were worried about what’s known in basketball as transferring up: players moving from Division II to Division I or from the Group of 5 to the Power 5. But blue bloods like Alabama are showing movement can happen at the highest levels, too.
Jordan Addison won the Biletnikoff Award at Pitt and entered the portal in May. He and Bryce Young worked out in California while he was in transfer limbo. Alabama even made overtures about bringing him to Tuscaloosa, sources said, but it never got far because he was intent on joining USC and its new coach Lincoln Riley.
Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi wasn’t happy with Riley for how the Addison saga unfolded. But Narduzzi was hardly alone in questioning the transfer process. Louisville coach Scott Satterfield suggested to 247Sports that Harrell was tampered with after he left for Alabama; Saban denied any wrongdoing.
A Power 5 assistant said the game has changed. “The whole goal of the postgame handshake,” he said, “is to start recruiting the other team.”
The paranoia is real, and quick commitments after a player enters the portal further fuel speculation.
On Jan. 10, Alabama lost to Georgia in the national championship game. Eight days later, Burton entered the portal. And four days after that, he announced he was joining Alabama.
In February, Saban addressed his use of the portal. He said that Burton “had some production this year” at Georgia.
Then he paused and shrugged.
Burton had 26 catches for 497 yards yards and 5 touchdowns.
“But [he] probably might have seen a better opportunity because we’re a little more wide open and throw the ball more with a good quarterback,” Saban added. “That may have been his intention.”
When Burton finally did speak to reporters this summer, he said he had moved on from Georgia and the championship.
“I honestly forgot about that game. I want to win with this team.”
LAST YEAR, MISSOURI coach Eliah Drinkwitz tried to peer into the future.
“We’re about two steps into a mile race,” he said of the transfer portal, “and I don’t think anyone knows the pace and I don’t think anyone knows the strategy and I don’t think anyone knows what the rules will be when this ends.”
Long story short: No one knows, or at least no one has settled on what’s the right thing to do.
The NCAA established windows of transfer activity in August, but that’s just a way of damming a river and pretending there’s not pressure building up on the other side. Because there most certainly is.
Strategies have varied wildly from one school to another. Georgia didn’t take a single transfer this offseason. Ole Miss took more than a dozen.
Siskey, who also spent time on staffs at Ole Miss and Arkansas State, expects Alabama to continue to be selective. “They don’t have to stretch for a guy in the portal,” he said, because Saban and his staff recruit high schools at such a high level; the Tide have finished in the top three of ESPN’s class rankings every year since 2008. Schools similarly flush with four- and five-star prospects — Ohio State, Clemson and the like — can instead use the portal as a supplement, filling gaps when a player leaves early for the NFL draft.
Leaning on the free agency analogy, Siskey said there are most often two motivating factors when it comes to players signing their next contracts: money and the ability to win a championship.
At Alabama, he said, there’s no need to sacrifice one for the other.
The Crimson Tide have won six national championships since 2009. No other team has won more than two during that time.
NIL, Saban said, is “not an issue for us.” He claimed players earned more than $3 million in name, image and likeness deals last season.
Siskey pointed to future earnings as another metric. This April, Saban claimed Alabama players have earned $1.7 billion in the NFL.
Steen got his degree from Vanderbilt and said he was looking for something new when he decided to transfer after last season.
And while adjusting to a new playbook, a new locker room and a new culture at Alabama isn’t easy, it appears to have been a successful transition. He has started every game at left tackle.
Steen said he has embraced the “different expectations” at his new home and how many people push him to reach his full potential.
“It’s different over here for sure.”
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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
ELMONT, N.Y. — The New York Islanders‘ Ilya Sorokin got the start in Game 3 as a rested goalie seeking to give his team a fresh start after trailing the Carolina Hurricanes 2-0 in their opening-round series.
But things turned rotten quickly for Sorokin. He gave up three goals on 14 shots before he was pulled 7:14 into the second period. Semyon Varlamov, who started the first two games of the series, stopped all eight shots he faced in relief, but it wasn’t enough: The Hurricanes defeated the Islanders 3-2 on Thursday, and New York now faces elimination Saturday afternoon at UBS Arena.
Coach Patrick Roy, who made the decision to start Sorokin, refused to directly address his goalie’s performance in Game 3.
“I’m going to say this: We win and we lose as a team. So I’m not going to go there. But what I’m going to say is sometimes we make changes as a coach because we feel we just want to change the momentum in the game. I’ll leave it at that,” said Roy, who had a Hall of Fame career as an NHL goaltender.
When asked how getting pulled could impact Sorokin’s confidence, Roy deflected again.
“Right now I’m focusing more on the team than focusing on our goalie,” he said.
Varlamov started the Islanders’ first two playoff games in Raleigh, posting a .905 save percentage and a 3.03 goals-against average. He gave up six goals on 63 shots. That included two goals in the span of nine seconds in Game 2, as the Hurricanes tied it and took the lead in shocking fashion during the third period.
Roy justified making the goalie change Thursday because Varlamov had faced 39 shots in Game 2 and the Islanders intended to use both goalies in the postseason.
Varlamov said he respected Roy’s decision to bench him for Game 3, even after he was called back into action following Sorokin’s removal.
“I trust Patrick on the decisions he makes,” Varlamov said. “He’s a head coach. We have to respect any decisions they make as a coaching staff.”
Sorokin, 28, got the majority of starts this season, appearing in 56 games to Varlamov’s 28. But Varlamov, 35, won seven of his last eight starts to lead the Islanders to a playoff berth in April, and earned the crease to begin the playoffs.
Carolina scored against Sorokin just 4:46 into Game 3 as a Brent Burns shot deflected off an Islanders defender’s stick. Defenseman Dmitry Orlov made it 2-0 at 10:25 on a shot that Sorokin couldn’t get over to fast enough to stop.
After Peter Engvall cut the lead to 2-1 at 2:48 of the second period, Carolina’s Sebastian Aho beat Sorokin on another stoppable shot to make it 3-1 at 7:14 of the second period. Roy signaled to Varlamov that he was replacing Sorokin.
After being pulled, Sorokin stood in the hallway to the dressing room, hunched over with his mask still on, looking devastated.
“It’s the game. Anything could happen. It’s not the first time,” Varlamov said of his friend and teammate. “I mean, what are you going to do? You have to move on and then forget about it and then just get ready for the next game.”
After finishing second in the Vezina Trophy voting for the NHL’s best goaltender last season, Sorokin posted his worst save percentage (.908) and goals-against average (3.01) of his four-season career. He begins an eight year, $66 million contract extension next season for the Islanders, who did not make him available for postgame comments.
Before Game 3, Roy recalled how his goaltending coach with the Montreal Canadiens described him and backup goalie Brian Hayward as different kinds of automobiles.
“Hayward was a Cadillac. He was comfortable. I was the Ferrari. I could be a little more bumpy,” said Roy, who then applied the analogy to the Islanders. “We had the Cadillac in the first two games, and now we’re going with the Ferrari.”
Unfortunately for the Islanders, they experienced engine failure in Game 3 and the Hurricanes took control of the series.
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Kristen Shilton, ESPN NHL reporter
TORONTO — Boston Bruins coach Jim Montgomery thinks goaltender Jeremy Swayman‘s dominance against the Toronto Maple Leafs — before and during their current first-round Stanley Cup playoff series — has started to rattle some players.
Montgomery made that suggestion in reference to an incident late in Boston’s 4-2 victory over the Leafs in Game 3 on Wednesday, when Toronto forward Max Domi appeared to seek out Swayman — owner of a 5-0-0 record versus the Leafs this season — during a TV timeout.
“Normally, I don’t think that [a goalie has one team’s number],” Montgomery said Thursday. “But when Domi goes off the bench and bumps [Swayman] on purpose, makes me think that maybe he’s in their head a little bit.”
Boston forward Trent Frederic — who got the Bruins on the board with a first-period goal in Game 3 — saw the interaction between Domi and Swayman, too. He agreed with Montgomery it might have revealed some mounting exasperation from the Leafs over Swayman’s recent success.
“Maybe Sway is getting in their head; he’s making a lot of saves,” Frederic said. “So, bump our goalies. I don’t know, didn’t work [for them] last night.”
That was ultimately true. Despite any on-ice antics, Swayman downed Toronto once again with a 28-save performance in Game 3 to give Boston a 2-1 series lead. Swayman previously made 35 stops in the Bruins’ 5-1 victory in Game 1, and then was replaced by Linus Ullmark in Game 2 (a 3-2 Bruins loss).
Toronto had better results against Ullmark, but the Leafs still haven’t managed more than three goals in a game so far this postseason. It’s a troubling trend that pre-dates facing Swayman and the Bruins (Toronto’s actually gone 10 consecutive playoff games scoring three or fewer goals) and those struggles have been magnified this time around by their lifeless power play (1-for-11) failing to fire in this series either.
Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe refuted the Bruins’ narrative though that their goaltender was somehow throwing Toronto off its game. In Keefe’s mind, the Domi bump was just part and parcel of this time of year.
“It’s playoff hockey, and things are happening all over the ice,” said Keefe. “With that logic [from Montgomery] you would say every time they bump into one of our guys maybe we’re in their heads”
Keefe also said he sensed “zero frustration” from his team over the low scoring output. The Leafs have generated their chances against Boston, averaging the third-most shots on goal per game in the postseason (33), but they’re also tied for the fewest goals per game (two).
Toronto’s offensive prospects would be helped by the return of forward William Nylander. The Leafs’ 40-goal scorer in the regular season has missed the first three games of their series due to an undisclosed injury. Keefe was asked again on Thursday about Nylander’s mystery ailment and would not confirm reports that the winger is dealing with migraines. Keefe did say the extra day of rest before Game 4 on Saturday does benefit Nylander though, who’s been classified as a game-time decision twice already in the playoffs.
“We’ve been working with Willy to give him the time that he needs to be ready to play,” said Keefe. “And the medical team works with him on a daily basis to see where he’s at and continue to assess that.”
As for who Toronto can expect to see in Boston’s crease for Game 4, that’s another mind game of its own. The Bruins have religiously rotated Swayman and Ullmark for nearly 30 games, dating back to February. Swayman said after Wednesday’s win that for him, “I don’t want rest; I just want to keep playing.”
The final decision will fall to Montgomery, who wasn’t saying whether Boston would stick with Swayman.
“Both goalies have been so good for us,” said Montgomery. “It’s a hard decision.”
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