A Grip on Sports: The NIL/transfer portal era is not that old but already it seems as if everything that could happen has

A GRIP ON SPORTS • It’s really easy to yearn for the good old days. When all a college football fan got angry about was their team’s performance on the field. A coaching decision on third-and-4. The rising cost of a hot dog. Good times, right? They are never coming back. If they really existed at all.

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• The hubbub over Demond Williams Jr.’s decision to sign-and-drive-away-with, seemingly, the keys to the University of Washington  program, roiled the Seattle football community the past couple days. To a degree that shocked even an old dude like myself.

Hasn’t anyone associated with the program been paying attention?

Williams isn’t the first promising young quarterback to leave a wanna-be national title contender in the lurch. He isn’t the first player to have buyer’s remorse after signing an NIL deal with a school. And he isn’t the first to decide to leave despite the ink not even being dry.

It’s happened before. It will happen again. And it will continue to happen until the schools either admit their football players (and other athletes) are employees or they spinoff their athletic programs into separate entities. Either way, there will be collective bargaining, there will be an agreement that governs player movement and there will be, someday, a strike. Won’t that be fun?

But we’re getting over our skis – an appropriate analogy considering the amount of snow outside the homestead this morning – a little. Let’s stop and look at Williams’ decision by itself.

A lot of things are true at once. The young man was offered a lot of money to stay at UW for his junior season. He took it. In a sane, well-regulated economy, that would be that.

Not now. Not in college athletics, 2026. Someone stepped forward with an offer he couldn’t refuse. He and those who advise him looked at it. And took it. Maybe they approached UW and asked to renegotiate. Were told no. We’ll find out sometime. Yes, no or whatever, Williams decided to move on.

Can he? There is precedent that says yes. Miami defensive back Xavier Lucas’ situation is analogous. He signed with Wisconsin, decided he didn’t want to stay, dropped out of the other UW, enrolled at Miami and will play in the CFP semifinals tonight. He is the Hurricanes’ best corner.

Wisconsin sued Miami last June. In a Wisconsin court. The case is pending, though updates are hard to find. Whatever, the Hurricanes are two wins from a national title.

Litigation may just follow Williams to wherever he ends up. It may or may not change the world. Our money is on “may not.”

A Wild West analogy might fit, except even Dodge City and Deadwood had some rules.

The Huskies have reportedly already had another transfer quarterback – former Missouri starter Beau Pribula – in for a visit. Does anyone at UW really think Williams can be forced to return? Heck no. And it’s obvious if he did, Jedd Fisch doesn’t want him, so Washington would try to find a way to not pay the deal.

Can’t have two $4 million quarterbacks on the roster.

The whole brouhaha is all sound and fury. In the world of college football, NIL, the transfer portal and the barnyard nature of it, it signifies nothing. Unless there is a cleansing of the system, coaches, players, just about everybody connected to the sport will continue to jump from port to port, unhindered by any anchors.

Everyone, it seems, except the fans.

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WSU: The Cougar football program seems to have such old world concerns these days. The most recent? Filling out the new coaching staff. Greg Woods has the latest news on that front. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, which burning trash container should we delve into next? How about tonight’s CFP game. Miami vs. Mississippi. On ESPN at 4:30. Should be straightforward, right? A semifinal, the winner moves on to the final. Except, with Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin and college football these days, nothing is simple. … We passed along the news from Jon Wilner about the Pac-12 front office yesterday. Wilner’s story is on the S-R website today. … As are his CFP picks. … John Canzano also has his picks. … How has Arizona State changed its approach to athletic recently? Wilner asked the school’s president for this Mercury News story. … The other CFP semifinal? That’s on Friday night. Oregon has its rematch with Indiana, which dominated the game in Eugene. Among the better teams this season, the rematches have favored the first-game loser. For the most part. … Oregon State is added players pretty much every day. At key positions. … Utah fans have mixed emotions about the whole Kyle Whittingham departure. … UCLA is mining James Madison and elsewhere to upgrade the offense. … Arizona is mining the portal as well as the Wildcats try to follow-up a decent second season under Brent Brennan. … Boise State has lost an assistant coach. … Utah State continue to add players.  

• In basketball news, Washington’s men started slowly and found out that isn’t the way to defeat fifth-ranked Purdue. … Oregon hosts Ohio State tonight. … Utah is just not very good. Colorado is better and proved it last night in Boulder. … Stanford won a barnburner over Virginia Tech. … UCLA has a lot of things to work on to get back to winning. … Arizona State has even more as last night’s 104-76 loss at BYU showed. … No. 1-ranked Arizona hosted Kansas State and won by 25. … Boise State played “soft and selfish” last night in a loss to visiting Grand Canyon. … San Diego State had little trouble at Nevada on Tuesday. … The Oregon State women played a tough schedule that is paying dividends and highlight how they have improved. … Arizona State bounced back after its first loss for a win over UCF.

Gonzaga: At least if the CFP game runs long on ESPN, it won’t impact the eighth-ranked Bulldogs’ starting time tonight. Their matchup with Santa Clara is on ESPN2, starting at 8:30. If you want to stay up and watch, Theo Lawson has a preview that will get you prepared. And a look at the key matchup. … Theo also has a story on Graham Ike making the Wooden Award midseason cut. … Former Gonzaga star Corey Kispert has been paroled from woeful Washington. The Wizards included the wing in their trade for Trae Young. … On the women’s basketball front, Greg Lee has a couple stories today. He has his usual weekly notebook, which looks at the WCC race. And he has a feature on Pepperdine’s second-year head coach, former Lake City High star Katie (Baker) Faulkner. … Finally, a GU alum will run in the World Cross Country Championship for the first time on Saturday. That news leads the S-R’s most-recent local briefs column.

EWU: There are great college basketball players at all levels of the game. Case in point? The Eagles’ Alton Hamilton IV, who came to Cheney after playing at Lewis-Clark State, which competes at the NAIA level. Dan Thompson looks at how Hamilton has fit in with Eastern’s men. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, Montana State celebrated their FCS title for a couple days. Then a big part of its secondary announced their intent to transfer. College football, 2026. … Cal Poly added a linebacker who played a lot for Boise State. … Weber State is going to honor a former basketball mainstay. … Northern Arizona’s men host their first Big Sky home weekend.

Preps: Wednesday nights are wrestling nights. Madison McCord has a story on University’s win over Mead in the first season of girls wrestling duals in the Greater Spokane League. … We can also pass along Dave Nichols’ roundup of the other GSL wrestling action.

Kraken: Berkly Catton’s first NHL goals were, for him and his family, a long time coming. After observing Catton score over and over again for the Spokane Chiefs, we knew this was inevitable. And just the beginning of what should be a long NHL career. 

Seahawks: We linked this story on the Hawks’ ability to run for long first downs when it appeared on the Times’ website yesterday. It is on the S-R’s today. We link it again. … Dave Boling and I texted back and forth the other day. A point of agreement? John Schneider has done the best job in the NFL recently. Not just drafting, which has been exceptional. But in targeting the right free agents. … Charles Cross has a smile on his face. … The defense could lead Seattle to another Super Bowl title. The passing offense may make it impossible.

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• I have one prediction that I know will come true. Every college football fan base will be angry at some point in the near future about a player leaving. And they will all celebrate a player coming in whose departure decision ticked off their counterpart somewhere. There is no getting around it. Until later …