Boiled down, aren’t we all transfers?

Iowa’s football team has barely been touched by transfers this month compared to the vast majority of FBS teams.

Wide receiver Tyrone Tracy and quarterback Deuce Hogan have left. A turnstile, that isn’t.

Meanwhile, players have flown off the shelves at a lot of major-college programs, and have been added in bulk by others. Is it the way to go or not? It’s in the eye of the beholder.

Iowa got to 10-2 with few transfers. The two who had the most-impact were receiver/kick returner Charlie Jones from Buffalo and defensive end Zach VanValkenburg from Division II Hillsdale College.

Michigan State, meanwhile, got to 10-2 with a slew of transfers, starting with All-America running back Kenneth Walker III. The Spartans have already added players from Wisconsin, Florida, Mississippi State and UNLV for next year’s team.

Tracy got a lot of offers in the last two weeks before hooking up with Purdue, close to his Indianapolis home. The Boilermakers have also added receivers from Auburn and Marshall, running backs from California and Indiana, and a cornerback from Kansas State.

Is Purdue Coach Jeff Brohm or MSU Coach Mel Tucker a dope? Nope. Is Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz? Nope. They’re all operating under new rules and trying to figure out what works best for them. At Iowa, it’s predictably conservative.

"Ultimately, it's like a prospect,“ Ferentz said Wednesday. ”You want to get somebody who's going to come to our campus and really maximize their experience and be here to run the entire race. That's the goal. It doesn't always work out that way.

“We'll continue to evaluate what is available. If there are players out there that we think can help our program either immediately or maybe long-term, we'll consider that.”

I quote Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney here not as some sort of paragon of purity, but as the leader of a national football power. Here’s what Swinney said this week about the transfer portal:

"It’s total chaos right now, tampering galore. Kids being manipulated. Grass is greener and all that stuff as opposed to putting the work in and graduating. There’s no consequences. So now you’ve got agents and NIL, tampering, and you have no consequences. No consequences equals no conscience.“

Total chaos? Tampering galore? Manipulated kids?

“Yes, yes, yes, yes. All of the above, for sure,” said Ferentz.

“The portal is kind of like NIL. I think we're all just on the front end right now. We really don't understand the total ramifications that are going to result here.

“One thing I have seen over the years is there are more and more adults with bad intentions. Or at least, I'll say they've got bad intentions dealing with young people and influencing them in a way that maybe — it's really no different than going to a Little League game where parents are just kind of misguided on what they think is important.

“It's still about — when you're competing, it's about the camaraderie, the teamwork, trying to do your best as a team, at least in our sport.”

Except that is really isn’t. Of course, teams exist, teamwork exists, strangers becoming brothers who form teams exist. But all teams are somewhat-loose affiliations of dozens of individuals with their own agendas, players and coaches alike.

They are motivated, talented people who understand their lives are theirs and theirs alone. They don’t have much time to max out their careers, and must make choices to try to give themselves the best chance to be successful and satisfied.

“One thing I learned 23 years ago, actually when I got to Maine in 1990, you can't make everybody happy,” Ferentz said. “Certainly in a program not everybody's going to be happy. Not every player is going to be happy on the team. It's just unrealistic. That's reality. In that regard, it's probably good when players have the freedom to leave.

“You just hope a guy leaves for the right reasons.“

Swinney’s offensive and defensive coordinators recently took head coaching jobs elsewhere and left Clemson’s players behind as the Tigers prepare to face Iowa State in the Cheez-It Bowl.

Walker announced he was opting out of Michigan State’s Peach Bowl to prepare for the NFL draft. Good for him.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com