“I Don’t Begrudge the Kids…”: Ed McCaffrey Recounts How Northern Colorado Lost Its Key Players in the Transfer Portal

The new era of college football makes it difficult for Power Five schools to keep players long-term. NIL and the transfer portal force them to retool or reload every offseason. Fortunately, they have their reputation and popularity at their disposal to help accomplish this mission.

Lower-level schools don’t have the same luxuries. Their rosters get poached by better/more-established programs every transfer cycle. Afterwards, they have to search through the players who are left behind. And trying to put together a competitive roster with pieces that don’t necessarily fit isn’t an easy task.

Ed McCaffrey – Christian McCaffrey’s father – learned this the hard way. The 13-year NFL veteran and three-time Super Bowl champion served as the head coach at Northern Colorado from 2020-2022. He posted just a 6-16 record there. On the latest episode of The Coach JB Show, McCaffrey recalled how his initial transfer portal experience hampered his preparation in Greeley.

“The [transfer] portal opens up… that really hurt. It did. And I don’t begrudge the kids at Northern Colorado for going to bigger schools. [But] we lost our entire starting offensive line [and] all of our starting defensive line for the most part… it hurt, because I knew what kind of team we could have had… it was upsetting,” Ed McCaffrey outlined.

McCaffrey said the experience made him adjust his approach. He tried transitioning from his college experience and mindset – “you sign [and] four years later, you graduate” – back to the techniques he used as a high school coach, where he won a state championship. He hoped to “prepare the players for bigger [college] opportunities.”

In reality, he never got that chance. McCaffrey didn’t get to coach a game in his first “season” at the helm due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He then dealt with “up to 60%” of the team being “pulled off the bus” before games due to COVID contact tracing in year two.

The transfer portal was already limiting McCaffrey. COVID followed as a second blow. The final nudge was NIL, something his “underfunded” FCS program couldn’t really provide recruits. The impact of all three new developments together proved too tough to handle.

“At Northern Colorado, NIL meant, ‘a coach promised me a rental car for the year.’ We’re not talking millions of dollars… it was new territory… it was very strict regulations. No one knew how they could police it. But at the same time, I didn’t want to get in trouble… COVID, transfer portal, NIL [all came] back-to-back-to-back.” – Ed McCaffrey 

In McCaffrey’s opinion, college football is “all about money now.” It’s a development that he’s not excited about. He believes “the rich are getting richer” and that “the teams with money are [only] going to continue to get better.” Perhaps a salary cap will help even the scales in the near future. But until that happens, all we can do is tune in on Saturdays and hope for the best.