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It sure feels like summer with temperatures forecast in the 90’s in much of the country, but for the most part the summer softball season is all but over.
At the end of last summer, we recapped the top 10 stories which you can find here and as we get ready to transition into the fall, we look back on the top stories over the last several months as we see it.
Do you agree? Have others that you think should be on the list? Write us at [email protected] and tell us what you think about what was best, most impactful or relevant to our sport!
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1. Transfer Portal
Remember last year when the hot topic was Early Recruiting? Yea, that seemed like 10 years ago because the biggest controversy in softball today is the massive changing of players at the DI level especially.
The Transfer Portal, as it’s known, has had hundreds of players listed who want to let college coaches know they’re looking to move addresses and since last October when it really took off, the portal has been used by non-starters all the way to players who are All-Americans looking to play immediately in a better situation as they see it.
Want to read a good overview of the portal? Check out this article: Are Player Transfers Changing the NCAA Softball Landscape for Better? Or Worse?
This summer, we’ve seen teams like Clemson pick up five players at once, the ACC Pitcher of the Year move to the Big 12, the 2018 National Champion FSU Seminoles lose a pitcher who ended up in the SEC, Florida pick up a U-19 Women’s National Team member and schools like Georgia Tech, Wisconsin, Texas, Louisville and ASU be impacted as well as others like Texas A&M, Oklahoma, Oregon and Louisiana.
You know that when Oklahoma loses its record-setting pitcher — who transfers to another multi-championship winning team in Arizona — there’s some serious musical chairs going on.
And that’s just some of the changes as few teams were untouched. No doubt it’ll be interesting to see how the Transfer Portal changes in time…. and changes the landscape of college softball even more.
