LAS VEGAS — Thor was set to hammer punts for the University of Hawaii football team this season.
But then, according to the South Bend Tribune, Australia’s James “Thor” Rendell withdrew a pledge to UH and committed to Notre Dame as a graduate transfer. It appeared a lucrative name-image-likeness deal factored in the change of plans for a punter who had never played in an organized football game.
At the Mountain West’s Football Media Days, Colorado State coach Jay Norvell shared stories of how teams sought to poach wideout Tory Horton and quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi.
“I’ve had every team in America try to take Tory Horton from us, from Texas A&M to Ole Miss,” Norvell said. “They’ve all been on him.”
According to Norvell, a man claiming affiliation to Kansas State called Fowler-Nicolosi, “offering $600,000 — because they lost their quarterback — if he got in the portal. I’m not accusing Kansas State of anything. I’m just telling you what the kid told me. And so if they don’t want their name thrown in it, I think they should probably get a handle on their people. There’s a lot going on in college football. That’s just the way things are right now.”
The Mountain West’s 12 football schools can be out-spent in the open market when it comes to NIL offers. “There will be times when somebody is going to have a bigger bankroll than you do,” Nevada coach Jeff Choate said. “And that’s just the reality of it. If the opportunity is worthwhile for that young man, and it’s going to be life changing, it’ll be hard for me to say, ‘Don’t do it.’ Our job is to build a great culture that they’ll want to stay around.”
San Diego State coach Sean Lewis said if “somebody comes along with a huge, huge, huge significant bag, they’re not going to stay away. For those who come — all things being even, all things being considered — it comes down to the people.”
UH coach Timmy Chang and Norvell are cognizant of the Mountain West’s place in the proverbial food chain. But there is a concern about contact before a player enters the transfer portal.
“I think the NCAA has to come down and really make some rules that it’s not the wild, wild west,” Chang said. “I think every coach here will say that right now it’s the governing of how things happen, whether it’s street agents — and anybody can be an agent nowadays — how your players get hit up on social media, get hit up by guys trying to get them into the portal, They’re hit up in a number of ways where there’s no governing body that kind of enforces rules that will stop all this. Until we put some rules in place that these are the portal windows, these are the guys that may talk to you about getting into the portal, and there’s no cap on how much money, how many resources, that you can give a player, you’re going to continue to see it. I think someone needs to step in and help that out, or there’s going to be a consistent movement of players.”
Because the NCAA allows players to transfer without sitting out a season at their next school, Chang warned, “what’s stopping a player in five years jumping to five different schools?”
Norvell said: “It’s very difficult to prove tampering. But there’s so much conversation going around.”
Norvell added: “I think the challenge for us is our elite players gotta be able to stay in this conference, and that’s getting to be a challenge. … We’re recruiting NFL players, and we’re fighting like hell to keep them at our school for the next four years.”
After the 2023 season, Boise State quarterback Taylen Green transferred to Arkansas. A month later, USC’s Malachi Nelson, a former 5-star quarterback, signed with Boise State.
As UNLV coach Barry Odom noted: “If we lose players, it’s our job to upgrade.”
