Kalen DeBoer was mildly surprised when he examined the Washington team he inherited.
“I felt the roster didn’t resemble what I envisioned being a 4-8 team,” he said.
Then he added Michael Penix Jr., whom he had coached at Indiana. And he added four more Power 5 transfers, including the team’s leading rusher, Wayne Taulapapa from Virginia.
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The Huskies are 4-0 and lead the nation in passing offense after finishing 80th last season. Washington went from four wins in 2021 to the AP Top 15 in four games after a pair of convincing wins over Michigan State and Stanford.
“Certainly, in college athletics in general, there’s a mindset that you do need to win sooner than later,” he said.
That’s only intensifying in the transfer portal era. A player earning immediate eligibility was an overdue, necessary freedom for college athletes, but it always was going to have unforeseen consequences.
One of these seems apparent now: Coaches trying to rebuild broken programs will have less time than ever as more evidence emerges that time isn’t necessary to win big, even at programs that hit rock bottom and hire a new coach.
Tennessee’s star quarterback who beat Florida on Saturday to make the Volunteers 4-0 and move them into the Top 10 in Year 2 under Josh Heupel? He was a Power 5 transfer. (So is his backup.)
The Vols’ leading receiver in the game: a Power 5 transfer.
The cornerback whose interception sealed UT’s cathartic victory: a Power 5 transfer.
With apologies to Lance Leipold at Kansas, of the 18 programs that changed coaches after the 2020 season, no one took over a program in worse shape than Tennessee.
NCAA sanctions loomed (and still loom). Around two dozen players left Rocky Top, including the Vols’ starting running back, starting left tackle (both to Oklahoma) and two of the defense’s three top tacklers, who landed at Alabama and Michigan State. Oklahoma also swiped the Vols’ top-ranked signee in the Class of 2020.
Heupel never asked for patience, but he deserved it.
“How are we trying to build this? It’s a long-term vision,” he said at his introductory news conference. “I believe that we can have immediate success as well.”
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But hardly anyone could have expected this level of success this quickly. Less than a season and a half into Heupel’s tenure, Tennessee secured the program’s highest ranking (No. 8) since 2006.
Immediate eligibility for transfers — especially established talents, like Heisman candidate Hendon Hooker at quarterback — who have Power 5 starting experience has helped expedite what many projected would be a lengthy rebuild.
“If you’re young and you need some development at a position, (immediate eligibility) allows you to patch it up in order to help solidify your roster in a completely different way than you were able to 10 years ago,” Heupel said.
Transfers have helped Tennessee, but several programs with new coaches leaned much harder into the portal with success.
Lincoln Riley’s USC program can take the crown as king of the portal for now. Heisman candidate quarterback Caleb Williams made the biggest headlines this offseason when he moved from Oklahoma back to California, but the Trojans’ top six leaders in receptions are all Power 5 transfers, and No. 7 is Raleek Brown, a freshman who flipped his commitment from Oklahoma to USC after Riley did the same.
The defense’s top two tacklers, Eric Gentry and Shane Lee, are transfers from Power 5 schools. In one offseason, USC went from 4-8 to a College Football Playoff contender.
Player movement always was bound to have unforeseen circumstances, and one is coming soon: Fan bases are losing reasons to be patient with their new head coaches. A long-term rebuild? There’s no such thing anymore.
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USC is an outlier. Not every program can welcome the same avalanche of transfers that included Jordan Addison, last year’s Biletnikoff Award winner.
But Washington is no outlier. Dozens of programs could, theoretically, do what Washington has done this season. DeBoer doesn’t have a resume full of No. 1 picks and Heisman Trophy winners and isn’t at a program with the same kind of history as USC.
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But he has rebuilt the program, and specifically the offense, “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”-style.
“Now, when different pieces can lead you down a path where you can have success right away, it definitely changes what people think and what they want to do,” DeBoer said. “But you can’t do it at the cost of not building your program the right way.”
DeBoer inherited an offense that ranked 113th in offensive yards per play, and previous coach Jimmy Lake was fired during the season.
Penix had battled injuries at Indiana and lost the starting job. DeBoer, who coached Penix with the Hoosiers in 2019, brought him to Washington after his career had been derailed by injury and he was passed up on the depth chart. DeBoer also added Taulapapa from Virginia, and in one offseason, Washington ranks 15th in offensive yards per play.
The era of “wait until he gets his guys in here” is already over.
“What the transfer portal does is it gives you an eye toward competing immediately instead of saying: ‘All right, look. We’re going to take our lumps. We’re going to build it with freshmen. It’s going to take some time,’” LSU coach Brian Kelly said.
The era of the Easy Bake Offense is here. But that luxury comes with a price for coaches: Patience, already in short supply across win-hungry campuses, is going to grow scarcer than ever.
Programs such as Tennessee, USC and Washington are enjoying commendable success earlier than expected, but they’re also providing fuel for future programs to ask an urgent question of their new coaches: If they did it that fast with their guy, why can’t our guy do it?
The clock is ticking faster than ever when the portal looks like an easy fix. It can be a fix, but it’s anything but easy.
“There’s pros and cons. As soon as there is a change made, it’s like blood in the water. People start attacking your roster. That’s No. 1. No. 2, when you come into a team, you have an opportunity to evaluate a roster, and you can add players as you see fit,” said Gators coach Billy Napier, who upset trendy preseason Playoff pick Utah in his first game at Florida. “I do think there’s opportunity there. You have to be really smart about your decision-making relative to roster management.”
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Patience is already wearing thin, especially at programs accustomed to winning. Washington fired Lake midway through his second season. Florida State fired Willie Taggart midway through his second season. Arkansas gave Chad Morris a pink slip before he reached the end of his second season, too.
The increased player movement will make overnight success an expectation. Faster than ever, boosters will tire of the bitter taste of losing. A coach being ushered out within two seasons is only going to become more common.
And though no athletic director wants to pull the plug on a hire a year after they make it, those days are coming for coaches in the transfer portal era who don’t show enough in Year 1.
(Top photo of Kalen DeBoer: Joe Nicholson / USA Today)
