By KENNEDY MCGEE
The locker room feels different these days, with rosters changing more often and coaches learning to rebuild teams faster than ever.
And the transfer portal that makes it easy for athletes to go to other programs is part of the reason for these changes.
Brad Franz, vice president for athletics at Northwestern Oklahoma State University, said the NCAA transfer portal changed college recruiting but has not drastically altered NWOSU’s overall approach.
The transfer portal is an NCAA database that allows athletes to declare their intent to transfer and speak with other schools. Franz said NWOSU experiences the same reality as most programs — players sometimes leave, and new transfers sometimes arrive.
“I don’t think it’s had any more effect on us than anybody else,” Franz said. “Players can now transfer in, and we get transfers out.”
Franz said one of the biggest adjustments for coaches involved team chemistry. With rosters changing more frequently, coaches have to bring players together more quickly than in the past.
“You have to adjust,” Franz said. “The game has morphed. As a coach, you have to have the ability to bring teams together quickly because rosters do change.”
He said turnover at the Division II level is still not as extreme as it is at larger Division I schools, where dozens of new players might join a program in a single year. Even so, teams staying together for the duration of college is no longer the norm.
“The day of teams being together for five years is probably not here anymore,” Franz said.
Franz, who said he has worked in college athletics for 38 years, views the portal as part of the natural evolution of sports. Rather than resist it, he said he believes programs needed to adapt.
“As coaches, you can either accept the new world and work with it, or fight it, and you’re going to struggle,” Franz said. “It’s just part of the game.”
While some worry the portal might drastically change roster sizes, Franz said that has not been the case at NWOSU or most Division II programs.
“It hasn’t really affected Division II roster sizes that much at all,” Franz said. “Small college athletics have not been nearly as affected as it has at the Division I level.”
Franz said the portal had both advantages and risks. It gave athletes more freedom, but some entered without a clear plan and struggled to find a new school.
“Some young people are fed bad information about going into the portal, and they end up without a school,” Franz said. “We try to watch out for young people and make sure we give them the best advice we can.”
Looking ahead, Franz said NWOSU would continue recruiting both freshmen and transfers while focusing on athletes who truly want to be part of the university.
“We still recruit quality young people, people that want to be here,” Franz said. “I think we’re going to fare very well.”