Mack Brown wants rule for athletes stay in school two years before transferring

Former North Carolina head coach Mack Brown is still on board with the NCAA transfer portal, but not the free for all. He wants kids to be in school for two years before opting to look elsewhere.

For that to be a rule, you’d have to massively change the process of transferring. Brown argued athletes staying at a school for two years allows them to work into a starting role, finish their basic studies, or do the latter and realize they’ll have a better athletic opportunity elsewhere.

As of now, football players for instance, some can transfer in the winter window but then transfer again roughly three or so months later in the spring window. It’s something Brown isn’t fond of.

“This would be hard, you’ve got to look at it through Congress,” Brown said on Sirius XM. “But I really think kids should stay two years at a school when they get there, because they get mad as a freshman, they want to transfer. And that’s not right. We’re allowing kids not to have to work for something anymore. And if the stat I was given a few years ago, guys, is if you transfer once, you’ve got a 63% chance to graduate, because your classes won’t transfer. We’ve got kids transferring four or five times, they’re not going to graduate, and then they’re not going to get jobs, and then there could be mental health tied to it at the end. 

“We’re not treating some of these kids fairly by allowing them the freedom to transfer anytime they want, and then maybe after that we go back through we had you transfer once, because I like the transfer rule. We had kids that couldn’t play, so if we made a poor decision, the kid couldn’t play, he should have a right to transfer. but you’d like to think, after two years, he’s getting ready to go into his major, he’s gotten rid of all the basic studies. He understands who he is better. He’s got two years, he’s got some film available, it would be easier to transfer up to that after that second year.”

On the surface, Brown’s idea makes some sense in regards to transfers. But, in the event of coaching changes, the can of worms is opened again. Players are free to work elsewhere. 

Having credits transfer over is another difficulty and it could be worse with multiple transfers, but having an athlete stay in a school for two seasons could erase basics from one institution but not another, limiting options.

It’s safe to say Brown isn’t a fan of constant transfers and he’s not alone there. But there will have to be intricate rule changes in order to make this a reality.