While I don't like to see anything that'll hurt our program, I'm all for the players doing what they feel is best for them. NCAA football brings in more revenue than the NFL. These coaches get paid incredible amounts of money. If they have success they jump to a better gig, and if they fail and get fired, they get a pay-out. The AD's and school admins that made these bad decisions don't lose a thing, it's not their money. The NCAA and the schools could have fixed this a long time ago by paying the players. And let's not forget, not all of the players are scholarshipped, yet they're putting it on the line every day, and they've not been allowed to work until recently, and even then there are hoops to jump through. So imagine, you have to pay for your own school, and you're putting in so much work on the field, and if you get hurt really bad it's "tough luck". Meanwhile the "adults" are doing very well for themselves with money generated from ticket sales, TV deals, video game deals, sportswear deals, etc... Even with the TIL, most athletes won't see anything, so they should at least be allowed to go where they wish.
In the past you had to hope the coach would give you a release letter if you wanted to transfer for whatever reason; you don't like the coaches, you don't start, you don't like the school, etc. If they didn't release you, you'd have to sit out a year, literally putting your athletic career on hold, just for some dumb-ass NCAA rule. It was all a game to the "adults" and the "kids" had no say. This gives the players a very small amount of power, and I love it. All of us can move about as we please, but not an NCAA athlete, they're screwed by a decision they made as a high schooler.
Realize this, we have just as many slots on our roster after the transfer portal as before, as do all the other teams. If we lose players to P5 schools, that's fine. We can get their transfer players from these other teams who are leaving due to whatever their reasons are, probably opportunity. Coaching staffs need to adjust, instead of bs-ing high school age players, they have to bs college age players, who now have some experience in the outside world. And if we can't attract their transfer players or not many of them are transferring, then that'll mean we'll have a better shot at high school players that would have gone to a P5 team, but can't as their rosters are too full with returning players and new transfer players.
The game is simply adjusting. Utah State figured the transfer world out. They were picked 5th in the division, yet won the conference and beat a P5 team in their bowl game. Now it not just a game of recruiting and coaching. It's a game of recruiting, coaching and retention. Keep up, or get out.
As far as those saying we should go to FCS. If you think we have a hard time recruiting to Laramie now, imagine how tough it would be if we weren't FBS? We'd end up as a middle of the road FCS program if we were lucky. We'll not get the same athletes we've been attracting as an FCS program.
Wyoming will never compete for the FBS National Championship. Our goals should be conference championships, the best bowl game we can qualify for, some opportunities to play and beat P5 teams, and beating CSU. I feel we'd need to go undefeated with two of those wins being against ranked teams, with one of them a top ten team to even be considered for the FBS playoffs. And also, there couldn't be four P5 teams that were also undefeated, as they'd get the nod. I feel switching to FCS would be a disaster for our football program in every sense, unless we somehow could make it to the Championship game, where we'd at least be back on TV for one game playing before a live crowd of 20k.
