Cam Ward, the frontrunner to be the No. 1 pick by the Tennessee Titans in the 2025 NFL draft on April 24, attended three schools over the course of his five-year college career. In another era – one without college athletes maintaining the ability to earn money based on their name, image and likeness and the transfer portal – the quarterback’s journey from Incarnate Word to Washington State and, ultimately, Miami (Fla.) would have been highly unlikely, if not impossible.
Instead, the new rules are the biggest driver of why Ward will likely hear his name called first by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell next week. For executives, coaches and scouts throughout the league, it’s a new reality. One that’s constantly changing and evolving – the Nico Iamaleava saga at Tennessee serving as the latest example of the uncharted territory college football and its participants find themselves occupying. And there are pros and cons to it all.
“The system is failing them in that regard but at the end of the day the coaches that get these players…these guys are a lot more NFL-ready,” Todd McShay, NFL draft analyst at The Ringer and Spotify who hosts ‘The McShay Show,’ told USA TODAY Sports.
Compared to decades prior and broadly speaking, rookies now enter the league more experienced. Transferring and earning money matures them.
“When you get to the NFL, and it’s much more likely that you’ve played more ball, played a higher level of ball…you’re more of a veteran football player who had to deal with the journey and moving so when you get to the league it’s not quite as much of a culture shock in terms of the talent level and the experience and even just the day-to-day life stuff,” McShay said. “For a lot of these guys with the NIL, it can be a positive thing of learning how to manage money and handle fame and fortune.”
McShay thought back to the advice former NFL coach Marty Schottenheimer imparted upon him during the year they spent as teammates at ESPN.
“The hardest part of evaluating is trying to predict what a human being will do with more money, fame and free time than he’s ever had before,” Schottenheimer told McShay.
‘Too many hands in the pocket’
Schottenheimer’s words still resonate in the league now.
McShay said he had pages of reports from talking to general managers and scouts about players with “too many hands in the pocket” and other external factors that come with money. Maturity concerns are easier to spot, if the proper research is done, once money is involved. It’s up to each pro organization to contextualize each transfer.
“It’s not going anywhere and it’s absolutely something that we have to be aware of when it comes to, ‘How do we onboard our players?’” Jacksonville Jaguars first-year head coach Liam Coen, who was an offensive coordinator at the University of Kentucky two years ago, said regarding NIL and the transfer portal at the 2025 scouting combine in Indianapolis.
“I think that’s changed a lot …. It’s hard to judge guys for jumping into the transfer portal,” Atlanta Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said.
Since 2021, players could both make money on their own name, image and likeness deals and also switch schools penalty-free. Transferring became en vogue. The total number of players among FBS scholarship transfers rose from 1,946 in 2021-22 to 2,303 in 2022-23, and then up to 2,707 in 2023-24, per NBC Sports. Nineteen of the 37 players drafted in the seventh round in 2024, for example, played for multiple schools, according to research from The Athletic. In 2019, one player fell into that category.
Figuring out the path has fallen onto the Falcons’ scouting department, Morris said.
“You (transferred) back in the day, it was because of some over-the-top reason,” he said. “Now it’s a little bit more normal.”
A player can make more on a one-year NIL deal than a late-round pick or undrafted free agent. That’s led to an increase in the number of players available to be drafted who are 22 to 25-years-old, Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said at the combine.
“I think a lot of that has to do with guys that wouldn’t come out in the last couple drafts and having the opportunity to go back and make money and stay in,” Gutekunst said. “We’re seeing the effects of it, but it’s a moving target right now with the landscape of college football. I give our staff a lot of credit for really thinking outside the box of how we attack. It’s an immense challenge.”
Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales opted to not refer to the shifting dynamics as “a challenge,” rather an opportunity to find information from multiple sources.
“Do their stories corroborate or was he one guy here and then somebody different?” Canales said. “I think you have more eyes on these players, which does help us evaluate the character and kind of go into those things. I understand players that have opportunities, financially, to go from one school to the next, that makes sense. They don’t know how long their careers are, so all these things kind of help us to be able to evaluate them.”
One hurdle is evaluating a player as he transitions from one scheme to another over the course of a calendar year. But that’s just another data point.
“It’s the onboarding process that we have to be really detailed about and make sure that we’re vetting the right players, right? Why did they move? Why were they going from place to place?” Coen said. “A lot of guys are just trying to climb and go get better for themselves.”
Area scouts vital in NIL, transfer portal era
The job has changed the most for area scouts, the members of the scouting department who oversee a particular area of the country.
“I would say for the area scouts it’s probably the hardest,” Titans head coach Brian Callahan said. “In years past, before all these guys transferred, you’d have two, three, four years of information-gathering on a player if you’re an area scout. Let’s say you’re the Southwest area scout and you’re building four years’ worth of a profile on a player. Well, now these guys transfer – usually at least once; sometimes twice – and now there (are) gaps in the information.”
College programs are establishing their own versions of front offices and doing the first line of evaluating as players move up from lesser conferences or even Division II and Division III. A player such as NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year Jared Verse, who ended his career at Florida State, doesn’t stay at Albany for his entire college career anymore.
On the flipside, not as many underclassmen enter the draft now. What incentive would a mid-round quarterback have to try his hand in the NFL when he could play at a more visible school and make more money if he hasn’t yet exhausted his eligibility? McShay estimates that the number of underclassmen taken in this draft will range from 55-65 rather than the usual 90-110.
McShay has friends who have been area scouts for nearly two decades. At a given Power Four school – South Carolina, for example – there would typically be 12-14 players to write reports about. Some were underclassmen. A few probably weren’t going to pan out, but it was important to start the research early. Now that number is closer to 30.
“The volume at these schools is wild,” McShay said. “Now, for those (scouts), they don’t get paid enough compared to what everybody else is getting paid. It’s just unbelievable, the amount of detail, work and background checks and stuff.”