Oklahoma quarterback Austin Kendall entered the transfer portal after spending the 2018 season backing up Kyler Murray. According to ESPN’s Jake Trotter, Kendall intended to transfer to West Virginia (a bit closer to his home in North Carolina), but OU attempted to obstruct him:
Oklahoma, aka Transfer QB U, should let players go wherever they want
The Sooners are likely starting a transfer QB for the fifth season in a row — while briefly impeding a transfer to WVU.
Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images
Under new transfer rules, Kendall is able to talk to West Virginia coaches and is free to transfer there. Oklahoma, however, still reserves the right under NCAA rules to keep Kendall from becoming immediately eligible at West Virginia, another Big 12 school, for the 2019 season, even though Kendall has earned his undergraduate degree at Oklahoma. Kendall could still transfer to West Virginia, but he would have to sit out the upcoming season, leaving him with only one year of eligibility left.
It was unclear whether OU was blocking Kendall from transferring to WVU outright, or just the immediate eligibility part, but this was interesting nonetheless. Especially considering those reports came on the same day former Alabama QB Jalen Hurts announced he’s transferring to Oklahoma, where he’ll be immediately eligible in 2019.
Per multiple reporters, OU relented soon after:
If coaches can change jobs without penalty, including within the same conference, then players should be able to do the same. Kendall should’ve always been allowed to play wherever he wants, even if that’s at a team on OU’s schedule.
The Sooners themselves have benefitted from transfer QBs for the last four seasons and counting.
Back in 2013, Baker Mayfield transferred to OU after walking on at Texas Tech. But he was held up by Tech. Mayfield still wasn’t able to play at the rival Big 12 school right away:
But the Big 12 has a rule that if players transfer within the conference, they lose that year of eligibility, in addition to having to sit out the season. That loss of eligibility could be waived by the player’s former school, but Tech denied Mayfield’s request to do that — and also, for a while, to let Oklahoma put Mayfield on scholarship.
Once Tech relented on that point, the NCAA let Oklahoma have an extra scholarship slot for Mayfield as he sat out 2014.
Luckily, the Big 12 made an exception to the one-year loss of eligibility for walk-ons, so Mayfield got an extra year of eligibility. He went on to start for three seasons, winning the Heisman Trophy.
In 2015, Murray transferred to Oklahoma from Texas A&M. He led the Sooners to a Playoff berth and gave them another Heisman Trophy. Yet another example of OU benefitting from a transfer quarterback!
Coaches block players from transferring every now and then, and it’s never a good look — especially not when that same team is more than happy to accept transfers.
In the summer of 2017, now-retired Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder infamously blocked Corey Sutton’s list of 35 schools he wished to transfer to. He later relented and Sutton ended up at Appalachian State, but it wasn’t a fun situation. Nick Saban has been criticized for it before. Gus Malzahn, Scott Frost, Mike Gundy, and others have done it, too.
These are just a few of the most prominent examples — tons of coaches do this, and it usually ends with folks getting upset and the coach letting up.
Look, I totally get being hesitant to release one of your QBs to a rival — especially when beating WVU is pretty critical to Big 12 title hopes. But Riley’s already benefited plenty from the QB transfer market. Let Kendall transfer where he wishes, even if that’s in Morgantown.
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