This no-rules era of College Football is way past ridiculous, and the USC Trojans have unfortunately taken the brunt of it.
“Tampering” is something that is illegal in every sports league, and in pro sports, agents and teams can receive very harsh penalties for engaging in this tactic. However, there is no real set of rules for tampering in College Sports right now, so it is running rampant.
What we know is that a program can not directly reach out to a player not in the transfer portal, which would be considered tampering, but there is no real regulation on agents and third parties doing it. So, theoretically, a program could tell an agent, “We want this kid, tell him we can give him X if he enters the portal,” and then chaos ensues.
Former USC Trojans offensive lineman Emmanuel Pregnon is just the latest player to be tampered with.
Former USC Trojans Star Emmanuel Pregnon Transfers To Oregon
Before the New Year, it was announced that Pregnon would be returning to USC for a final season and would be playing in the Las Vegas Bowl.
After the bowl game, Pregnon shockingly entered the transfer portal.
Rumors swirled about why, but according to one report from Scott Schrader of On3, tampering from Oregon was certainly a major reason.
According to Schrader:
“Although Emmanuel Pregnon had accepted USC’s NIL offer last month and played in the Las Vegas Bowl, I learned today that he was offered 150k more from Oregon. There may be another school in the mix, but definitely Oregon.”
Today, Emmanuel Pregnon committed to Oregon.
Now Oregon is not the only school doing this, just about everyone most likely is, but they are certainly one of the programs with the largest NIL budgets thanks to Nike Co-Founder Phil Knight.
Until some kind of regulations are created, this is the world of College Football that we all have to live with. It makes recruiting much more interesting, but also makes retaining players that much more challenging.
Lincoln Riley and his staff have to essentially build the program with a different approach every single year because there are no guarantees that players will stay and develop to see a plan through.
Don’t fault the players for this, however, this is the game right now and they have the right to play it.
The USC Trojans will play at Oregon on November 22 where they will see both Emmanuel Pregnon and Bear Alexander.