How well does a portal build really work?
Looking at Deion Sanders and others to assess the newest style for roster building
With the Spring portal wide open, how important is the portal to building a successful roster?
Last year’s portal season was the wildest yet, and early returns on this offseason’s iteration makes it even crazier. We’ve seen teams lean heavily on the portal, but does that bring success? Let’s look at two programs to see the highs and lows of a modern portal build.
Colorado
Perhaps the biggest story leading into last season was the Deion Sanders-led Colorado Buffaloes. I did cover the Buffs leading up to the season, so I won’t get into what happened here. Instead, let’s recap:
Sanders brought in a record 51 recruits in a complete roster overhaul
Top portal prospect, Travis Hunter, alongside quarterback Shedeur Sanders, followed Neon Deion from Jackson State to Boulder
Further Reading:
But did it pay off? Well, not exactly.
Colorado went 4-8, which is definitely an improvement over the 1-11 preceding season.
Some of the transfers, namely Sanders and Hunter along with USF transfer Jimmy Horn II, lived up to the hype. If it wasn’t for a liver laceration, Hunter almost played himself into the Heisman conversation as a two way star. Shedeur had some great moments, but got pummeled due to a lackluster offensive line and holding onto the ball for far too long. Sanders also went down with injury, missing the final game of the season with a back injury.
What concerned me most about Colorado is the fact that they don’t seem to be building a program. For all the Sander hype, Amazon Prime TV shows and Heisman candidates that may or may not be in Boulder, there doesn’t seem to be a cohesive program. Well, aside from the portal.
There’s some continuity on the coaching staff, but there’s debate on whether or not star offensive coordinator Sean Lewis was pushed out by Sanders. Lewis called the offense for the first eight games of 2023, where the Buffs raised their scoring offense from 122nd in the nation to 59th. Each of Colorado’s wins came while Lewis was heading up the offense and the team averaged 32 points per game.
Midway through the season, Sanders made the inexplicable and surprising move to supplant one of the game’s brightest offensive minds with Pat Shurmur, whose offenses have never been described as explosive. Shurmur called the final four games, where Colorado only averaged 20 points per game. It’s important to remember the injury to Sheduer in the final game, but the numbers are staggering. Shurmur appears ready to lead the offense once again in 2024 after Lewis departed Boulder to become the head coach of San Diego State.
The same continuity cannot be found on the players’ side, as 42 Buffaloes entered the portal ahead of this season. That leads the nation. The next closest? Michigan State, Alabama and Indiana - each of whom had their head coach leave - with 39. After that is Houston, another school that showed their head coach the door, with 33. The Colorado 247 Sports portal page reads like a novel, and that doesn’t bode well for Deion and company.
Texas State
On the other side of the coin is a team that flew under the radar, but I feel a lot better about long-term: Texas State.
The Bobcats had a similar situation to Colorado: year one under a new coach with little to no success since the turn of the century. Texas State only made the FBS jump in 2013, but haven’t done much of anything since then. They’ve been overmatched at every step.
Enter G.J. Kinne. The son of a Texas high school coach, Kinne had the revolutionary idea to “Take Texas Back.” But first, he needed some players.
Heading into 2023, there was only one team that eclipsed the 71 new faces and 40 transfers Kinne brought to San Marcos: Colorado. Where Colorado floundered, though, Texas State exploded.
After nine long years without a winning season, Kinne’s Bobcats posted the best FBS season in school history with a record eight wins, their first ever win over a Power Five opponent in a season-opening 42-31 win over Baylor, and the school’s first ever bowl appearance and win in a 45-21 drubbing of in-state Rice. The Bobcats finished the season 8-5 with a tie for second place in the Sun Belt West.
Kinne didn’t just bring wins, though. He brought strength in all three phases of football. The Bobcat offense averaged 36.7 points per game (14th in the nation), 457.6 yards per game (14th in the nation),186.7 rushing yards a game (25th in the nation) and 270.9 passing yards per game (28th in the nation). The defense was a strong attacking unit, finishing first in tackles for loss and eighth in sacks. The special teams had explosive returns, with an average return of 26.08 yards, good for sixth in the nation.
Texas State under Kinne has an identity: attack your opponent. Whether that’s with a fast-paced up-tempo offense or a defense ready to wreak havoc on opposing quarterbacks and running backs, Texas State is going to make you uncomfortable. Colorado doesn’t have that identity.
More importantly, Texas State isn’t retooling an entire roster this year. They’re replacing what they lost. As it stands now, 22 players are leaving the Bobcats through the portal and Kinne and company have added 20. They’re also not just adding bodies, they’re improving. T.J. Finley had a great season under center in 2023, but could one of Jordan McCloud (James Madison) or Jayden de Laura (Arizona) take the Bobcats even higher? Sure, they lost four-star defensive lineman Myron Warren to the spring window, but are Tunmise Adeleye (Michigan State) or Alex Merritt (Eastern Michigan) able to improve on Warren?
The Verdict
So, let’s as the question again: How well does a portal build really work?
The answer isn’t as clear as we want it to be: sometimes.
The portal, as we’ve seen time and time again, is great for short-term hole plugging. While it can jumpstart a rebuild, it just doesn’t seem to be an effective way of building a program that can compete.
Sure, Colorado and Texas State compete at different levels in the PAC-12, now Big 12, and Sun Belt, but their approach to the portal could not be more different. Where Deion is looking to get the flashiest guys to make the best plays, Kinne is looking for players that fit his program. Colorado functions like an All-Star team with only a few true all-stars. Texas State operates like a football team, building together to compete.
That’s not to say a portal build can’t work. It just can’t replace the program building that coaches have done since the beginning of college sports.
The biggest key is this: you can’t expect a bunch of random players to come together as a good team. Coaches and staffers need to be aligned and create a program that players want to play for. Because once they grow together as a team and want to win, then they can play as a team and start to win. Colorado is guilty too much of chasing the player. If a team wants their portal build to be successful, they have to keep in mind that football is a team sport, and they have to build that team. The portal is a piece to that puzzle that continuously grows larger, but is just that. A piece.
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