What Happens to the Thousands of Players Stuck in the Transfer Portal?

Stop the count! Put down those pencils and turn in your papers. The transfer portal has officially closed (minus Indiana and Miami). It's about damn time. However, we still have over 10,000 players in the transfer portal in all of college football (3,825 FBS)... um what. The FBS has 1/4 of all of their players stuck in the transfer portal without a team. I don't need to explain to you how insane that is. That sums up the state of college football and what the transfer portal and NIL has done. I can't help but to wonder, what will happen to the thousands of players stuck in the transfer portal?

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/1d7115_4d7b80e3e83a44fa98326f852c0c40eb/480p/mp4/file.mp4

Per @RichEisenShow

To put it simply: nothing. Nothing happens to these players. They remain in the void and team-less. The previous school they were with can take them back. But put yourself in this situation: you're a coach and you invest valuable time and money getting someone to play for you. After one year, they tell you they want to leave... are you welcoming them back when no one wants them? Call me old fashioned, but hell no.

Best case scenario, if you were a starter, your old team can take you back. But at what cost? Undoubtably you've lost respect from teammates and coaches. There's a good chance you'll lose your scholarship. There's a good chance you'll lose your roster spot. There's a good chance you're left off worse then you were before entering the portal. Womp Womp.

Coach Thomas Hammock sums up the reality of the transfer portal per @ESPNCFB

With all of that being said, it's hard to not have sympathy for these student athletes. After all, most of these kids are getting awful advice from agents who don't necessarily have their best interest in mind (it's not their career they're gambling with). The lack of rules and regulations enable these nightmares to occur.

We've recognized the problem, and now we're going to propose a solution: regulate player representation. Implement rules for what you can/can't negotiate. Lay out the requirements for agents to be able to represent players. Contracts need to be required. We're allowing "agents" to make promises they can't guarantee. And for the millionth time, fix the calendar.

Jon Gruden and AAC commisioner Tim Pernetti on changes needed for the portal per @NILnotNLI

As we've seen, agents are encouraging players to enter the portal because they'll find a school who can pay them more money. As we've see, that hasn't worked out 1/4 of the time. Having seen how bad things can turn out for these players receiving terrible business advice, change seems inevitable. This can't go on.

I do believe we're living in the wild west of college football. This is such a unique state of progression without legislation. I do believe we can figure out the NIL and transfer portal. But as of now, we don't have the rules in place to protect nightmares like this happening to players.