Is CU at risk of losing players to the SEC?

BOULDER — The Pac-12 won’t play sports this fall, which is opening the door to a new question: Will players transfer to schools in conferences that will play football this fall?

Just a few miles north of Boulder, the Colorado State Rams are already facing this problem. Tight end Trey McBride and wide receiver Warren Jackson — both of whom project as NFLers — entered the transfer portal in the past week.

There could be other factors at CSU contributing to Jackson and McBride’s decisions to seek other opportunities, but the point still stands; college football players clearly want to find a way to play college football this fall.

Lane Kiffin, now the head coach at Ole Miss is one of many outsiders who are calling on the NCAA to grant eligibility waivers for players who are transferring from a conference that isn’t playing this fall. The waiver would allow student-athletes, who typically have to sit out a year, to play immediately upon their arrival at their new school.

The NCAA’s decision could open a floodgate of players who are looking for a chance to play this fall.

Colorado head coach Karl Dorrell told reporters last week that seniors K.D. Nixon and Nate Landman asked to meet with him to talk about their options, which include transferring out of CU.

“I told them as recently as this morning, there is some time to think through some things,” Dorrell said Wednesday. “There is nothing that needs to be reacted upon right now. But I wanted them to spend some time to their collective thoughts and put some thought into it and come back and let’s talk about it. That is kind of where we left it today.”

COVID-19 is providing some strange circumstances for college coaches to navigate, but the pandemic isn’t all that Dorrell, who spent the last 12 years in the NFL, must adapt to.

“The last time I was in college football, this wasn’t part of the equation, this portal thing,” Dorrell said. “Now it’s kind of part of a college free agency deal. You really have no control over that. That is the prerogative of the student-athlete that wants to make that transaction.”

Whether the SEC, ACC and Big 12 will actually play a fall season is still up in the air but the transfer storyline is one worth watching for Colorado.