Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz is already looking ahead to what he expects will be another chaotic offseason, and he doesn’t think this one will look like anything college football has seen before.
Speaking Wednesday during the SEC teleconference, Drinkwitz said he believes the next transfer portal cycle will be the wildest yet.
“Just a prediction, I think this will be the most volatile transfer portal,” Drinkwitz said Wednesday during the SEC teleconference. “I think we’ll have more people in the portal than we’ve had previously because that’s just the nature of what it is. More agents involved with players than there’s ever been.”
That warning comes as college football continues to be shaped by NIL and the transfer portal, two forces that have changed the way the sport operates and have helped narrow the gap between the traditional powers and the rest of the country. The 2026 season has already reflected that shift, with more programs finding ways to compete at a high level and the overall field looking more balanced than it has in the past.
Drinkwitz has been one of the most vocal coaches on the subject, and his latest comment fits right in with the way he has talked about the portal before. With recent transfer activity still surging and courts continuing to issue rulings and lawsuits that allow players to return to college football, the expectation of another turbulent offseason doesn’t feel out of line.
If anything, Drinkwitz’s prediction sounds less like a hot take and more like a realistic read on where the sport is headed. The portal has already become one of the defining forces in college football, and another massive wave of movement would only deepen the parity that has started to define the game.
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