The man who legally dismantled NCAA transfer restrictions now calls the resulting system a ‘train wreck’ and ‘sucking the life out of college sports,’ admitting the chaos was an unforeseen consequence of his victory in a landmark antitrust lawsuit.
In a stunning admission, the Tennessee Attorney General who spearheaded the lawsuit that effectively eliminated all restrictions on college athlete transfers now describes the very system he helped create as a “train wreck.” Jonathan Skrmetti, one of the state government officials who sued the NCAA and won, has gone from celebrating a victory for player freedom to lamenting the instability that has followed.
“I think the portal is probably the single biggest problem that needs to be solved…” Skrmetti told USA TODAY Sports. “The portal is just sucking the life out of college sports and putting student-athletes in a bad position. And if there is one change in the immediate future that needs to happen, it’s fixing the portal.”
Skrmetti and a coalition of state attorneys general, later joined by the federal Department of Justice, filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA in December 2023. Their goal was to eliminate rules that restricted undergraduate players from transferring more than once. They won a settlement with the NCAA in 2024, granting Division I athletes more freedom of movement than those in the NFL, NBA, or other professional sports leagues.
The Unintended Consequences: A Roster Revolution Gone Wild
The immediate aftermath has been nothing short of chaotic for college athletics. The bedlam Skrmetti now decries is not hypothetical; it’s playing out in real-time across the country:
- A quarterback, TJ Finley, is set to play for his seventh college in seven years, after stops at LSU, Auburn, Texas State, Tulane, Western Kentucky, and Georgia State before landing at Incarnate Word.
- In the first two weeks of 2026 alone, more than 6,500 Division I football players entered the transfer portal. That’s enough players to field over 60 entirely new teams.
- Coaches like Deion Sanders at Colorado have used the portal as a “pro-style waiver wire,” flipping nearly their entire roster in a single offseason to bring in over 47 new transfers.
- Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman, at 58, quit his job, citing being “at his ‘wits’ end” with the roster upheaval caused by unlimited transfers.
- Duke University sued its own quarterback, Darian Mensah, to prevent him from transferring, a move that was later settled.
Former Penn State tight end Adam Breneman, co-founder of The College Sports Company, summed up the player development crisis: “A player moving to seven schools is not healthy for college football, roster building, locker rooms, or player development. There has to be a middle ground where athletes have freedom, but also accountability, especially now that many are being paid.”
No Regrets, But a Call to Action
Despite the current chaos, Skrmetti does not regret his actions. He views the old transfer restrictions as an illegal rule that unfairly prevented players from maximizing their earnings in the new era of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). He argues that the NCAA was behaving illegally and that the litigation was necessary to tear down a broken system.
“It’s not that the NCAA got sued by states. It’s that the NCAA was behaving illegally,” Skrmetti said. “And so just like with the NIL stuff, it was going to happen, like somebody was going to push back. And the point of the litigation is not to carve in stone the Wild West. It’s to get conclusive rulings that the old ways are broken, and it’s time to start creating what the next college sports regime looks like.”
He places the responsibility for building a new, stable system not on the courts, but on college sports leaders and perhaps the U.S. Congress. The transition, he admits, “is taking way longer than it should.”
The Vanishing High School Recruit and the Eroding Educational Model
The fallout extends beyond just roster churn. The University of Colorado’s Board of Regents has expressed concern about the diminishing opportunities for local high school recruits as Coach Sanders fills his roster with transfers from out of state. The traditional pathway for a hometown kid to play for his state university is being actively dismantled.
Meanwhile, the NCAA’s original justification for strict transfer rules—academic integrity—has been largely lost in the legal and financial battle. The NCAA itself stated that “academic ties to college sports are being eroded by a deluge of lawsuits,” noting that some student-athletes are now seeking “eighth years of collegiate eligibility” despite the average student completing their degree in five years or fewer.
The current system has effectively turned college football into a professional league, with players as free agents and coaches as general managers constantly managing a revolving door of talent. As attorney Mit Winter put it, “The frequent movement we see now is a natural occurrence of what college athletics really is at the highest level: pro sports.”
For now, the transfer portal remains an open floodgate, and the man who opened it is left watching the chaos unfold, hoping that those who run the sport can build something stable to replace the illegal structure he helped tear down.
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