One thing everyone can agree on: tampering in the portal is happening all the time
It seems unclear what the penalty for tampering is, and to my knowledge the NCAA hasn’t gone after anyone or any school for tampering.
I propose the punishment for tampering be extreme and equally enforced against the school, coaches, high school coaches, agents, and boosters, and athletes.
Specifically, if an athlete engages a school, coach, or agent for the purposes of transferring prior to entering the portal, that player should be ineligible to compete in college athletics for 2 years and would lose 2 years of eligibility.
Also, agents should have to be registered with the NCAA and would loose their registration if they engage in tampering. Any contact with agents not registered with the NCAA results in the loss of eligibility.
Finally, all NIL deals must be disclosed to the NCAA in their entirety. If it’s all above board, nothing to worry about. (I’ll bet there are a number of NIL deals linked to schools that were inked before the athlete ever entered the portal)
I agree something has to be done. The only rule now is that a coach cannot contact a player until after they have officially registered in the Portal and vice versa. However, there are no rules and never will be for players talking to players.
IMO, the NCAA needs to go after the Boosters, Agents and anyone who contacts a player on scholarship prior to officially being registered in the portal. The penalties should depend on who made the contact before the player entered the portal and range from loss of eligibility, loss of scholarships and banned from future player contact.