There's nothing wrong with Georgia head coach Kirby Smart's belief on transfers
It looks and sounds bad -- a coach restricting schools a player can transfer to.
In today's world of quick takes, it's easy to come to the conclusion that transfer restrictions are in no one's best interest due to two reasons:
1. Football players contribute to the billion-dollar business of college football, with the major on-field contributors never seeing their true fair market share. Giving them a little more control would be nice.
2. Coaches are allowed to come and go as they please without penalty, given that most athletics programs will pay for contract buyouts. So why restrict players from coming and going as they please?
Georgia's former head coach Mark Richt, now at Miami, lets his players transfer anywhere they want upon requesting a release from their scholarship agreement. Only once in 15 years under Richt did a player transfer to a rival -- when running back/defensive back J.J. Green left for Georgia Tech. While Nick Marshall and Zach Mettenberger ended up elsewhere in the SEC, they were dismissed from the program and went the junior college route before ending up at Auburn and LSU, respectively.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, however, decided this practice would end. Depending on the situation, a player could have restrictions placed on where he can go. This is actually a common practice throughout college football. Some colleges abuse the power and place unfair restrictions on athletes. Some don't.
The biggest issue some people have a problem with is placing a restriction on A.J. Turman, a running back who never logged a carry at Georgia, from transferring to Miami. Miami is not a conference opponent and isn't on future schedules. The only connection is that Richt is now coaching the Hurricanes.
Smart was blunt and unapologetic about why he placed this restriction on Miami.
"One of the reasons I put Miami on there is I wanted to set the precedent that in the future kids would not be able to go to Miami right away," Smart said. "It's very important that we understand that, and that's pretty much standard operating procedure -- when a coach leaves one place that a kid can't go there with the coach. That's important to me that people understand that."
Consider this hypothetical: Turman is granted a full release and enrolls at Miami, even though it would not be in his best interest considering the previous staff never played him and he would have to sit out a year. Spring practice then ends four weeks later and other players follow suit, saying they prefer Richt over Smart.
Some will say it's not fair for college athletes, ages 18 to 23 usually, to not have this choice. They're young, are lied to consistently during the recruiting process and are susceptible to being taken advantage of by athletics departments, which do hand out full-ride scholarships to attend universities and play football.
But if you're Smart, and you work 100-plus-hour work weeks while facing tremendous pressure from an athletics department and donor base to win football games -- while being paid handsomely to do so -- it's also reasonable to consider the notion that you need to send a message to players that the university they committed to is bigger than a previous coaching staff.
You open up a can of worms by allowing anyone to transfer anywhere. Conference rivals could suddenly recruit players already on other rosters through back channels. You think recruiting is dirty now? Think of the possible poaching.
A great example of why restrictions on transfers work lies with Justin Boren, an offensive lineman who played at Michigan under Lloyd Carr in 2006 and 2007. When Carr retired and after Rich Rodriguez took over, Boren decided to leave the program and publicly stated that "family values have eroded." Was this true? Maybe. Boren's claim was refuted in the book "Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football" by journalist John U. Bacon.
If the Big Ten didn't restrict conference programs from a player's transfer list, Boren could have swapped sides to Ohio State and maintain his scholarship. He couldn't do this but went to Ohio State anyway and paid his own way.
Boren wasn't Turman, either. Boren was a starting offensive lineman who contributed to Ohio State's wins over Michigan in 2009 and 2010. If Georgia had an angry player, who entered a public war of words, would you be OK with him transferring to Florida or Georgia Tech? I somehow doubt it.
The previous transfer philosophy hasn't burned Georgia. But there is a risk involved. And there's a reason the major conferences have their own rules written on the subject.
There are still many schools Turman can enroll at and play football for on scholarship if they want him. And if Turman wants to go to Miami -- which Smart said he doesn't -- then he can still go. He just has to pay his own way for a year.
Turman will have the opportunity to continue his college career. Smart believes he's protecting his program.
In actuality, there are no losers here.
Contact Jason Butt at jbutt@macon.com
This story was originally published March 20, 2016 at 4:41 PM with the headline "There's nothing wrong with Georgia head coach Kirby Smart's belief on transfers ."