The FCS Daily Dose is a blog-style article series featuring an assortment of news, rumblings, quick-hitters, and commentary on various topics. A new Daily Dose will publish multiple times a week to keep the FCS discussion going throughout the long offseason.
For March 12, 2024, let’s talk about…
Head Coach Changes Can See Transfer Exodus
It seems like the overall tone from coaches on the transfer portal has changed. There are still some complaints, sure. But the overall tone seems to now use words like “embrace” or “leverage” or “adapt” instead of saying things like “the wild west” or “college football is unrecognizable.”
Perhaps that is due to them realizing guardrails aren’t coming anytime soon as the NCAA continues to get boat-raced in the courts when it comes to enforcing its transfer portal or NIL rules. It also may be due to media and fans calling coaches out on their BS when they complain about the portal.
Because coaches will bolt for greener pastures quicker than players will. And coaches will have no problem with the portal as long as it benefits them.
There is a long list of reasons why a player will enter the portal. Most of the reasons are, well, reasonable. One may be their head coach left. And the FCS specifically has seen multiple instances of a wave of players following their head coach.
Last year, 10 Jackson State players followed Deion Sanders to Colorado, while 19 total players transferred to the FBS. Nine UIW players followed GJ Kinne to Texas State, while 15 total players transferred to the FBS.
There are two similar instances this offseason:
10 Austin Peay Players Follow Scotty Walden To UTEP
Walden accepted an FBS head coaching job at UTEP after four seasons at Austin Peay. He had a winning record every season with the Govs, including a 9-3 mark in 2023.
Austin Peay has since seen an FCS-high 15 players transfer to the FBS, nearly twice the number of Holy Cross, who has the second most with eight. Ten of those players followed Walden to UTEP.
This includes leading rusher Jevon Jackson and the No. 2 and 3 WRs Trey Goodman and Kam Thomas while leading receiver Tre Shackelford transferred to Washington State.
Austin Peay lost several standouts to the FBS last offseason and still improved its record in 2023. We’ll see if the Govs can reload once again. The negative of losing guys to the FBS is obvious. The positive is that it’s a sign the talent on the roster is strong. Austin Peay is in an area where it can take advantage of the portal too, whether that be finding FBS transfers looking for more playing time, or signing recruits out of high school that would have been FBS signees five years ago but aren’t getting as many offers due to FBS teams using more scholarships for transfers.
There is a give and take with the portal in multiple ways.
20 Gardner-Webb Players Follow Tre Lamb To ETSU
Lamb took the ETSU HC opening after four seasons at Gardner-Webb and back-to-back playoff appearances.
It’s a great hire for ETSU, who lost all momentum after its 2021 quarterfinal run.
Lamb is bringing a whopping 20 Gardner-Webb transfers with him. That includes All-Conference players like LB William McRainey, OL Gabe Thompson, and OL JaQuan Adams, the Top 2 WRs Karim Page and Ephraim Floyd, and QB Jaylen King, who started the final seven games.
ETSU also added Saint Francis QB Cole Doyle, a two-time All-NEC selection and the 2022 NEC Offensive Player of the Year. Doyle threw for 2,977 yards, 34 TDs, and 12 interceptions in two seasons at SFU.
ETSU Intrigue
Keep an eye on ETSU.
Adding 20 Gardner-Webb players doesn’t necessarily mean this team will be a Top 25 squad in 2024. It might. It might not. Gardner-Webb was solid, but it’s not like the Runnin’ Bulldogs were routinely ranked in the polls. Loading up on transfers from back-to-back 7-win FCS teams isn’t convincing enough to preseason rank ETSU, at least for me.
But Lamb can coach. He’s improving the depth of roster talent by adding multiple FCS All-Conference players and landing five FBS transfers. And ETSU has shown it can make noise nationally a couple of years ago. The 34-year-old HC can inject some life back into a program that restarted football in 2015 and was on an upward trajectory. The Bucs made the playoffs in 2018, losing in the first round. They reached the 2021 quarterfinals and played NDSU relatively tough before losing 27-3. The season was also highlighted by whooping the SEC’s Vanderbilt 23-3.
It seemed ETSU had arrived.
But HC Randy Sanders retired after the 2021 breakout season. And two years of George Quarles at the helm saw back-to-back 3-8 seasons. He was fired. Now, the Lamb era begins.
ETSU has a nice following of fans wanting back on the national scene. It doesn’t play in the biggest of stadiums, but its average home attendance last fall of 7,990 was 103.8% capacity.
The SoCon has a great tradition of national success. But folks point to it taking a step back after losing Marshall, App State, and Georgia Southern to the FBS, the last two more recently in 2014. But folks also forget that App State wasn’t exactly contending for national titles in its last few years in the FCS. It didn’t make it past the second round in the last two seasons of eligibility. One could argue that the 2021 ETSU squad was better than the App State team that left the SoCon. In a current FCS landscape where there needs to be more consistent deep playoff threats in the east and south, add ETSU to the long list of programs with at least the potential to step up their game to give the playoffs a more national feel.
However, the bar to win an FCS championship looks much different now than it did in the 2000s during the SoCon’s heyday. But that’s a Daily Dose topic for another day.
