The chaos continues for college football, with the apparent collapse of the transfer portal

College football continues to experience the chaos it deserves.

Thanks to decades of flagrant antitrust violations that limited players to an education that didn’t begin to match the value they brought to their school, the model has collapsed in recent years — thanks to a series of lawsuits attacking the independence habit of businesses that band together under the NCAA umbrella to rig and limit labor costs.

The latest bit of chaos comes from the apparent collapse of the transfer portal. After Wisconsin refused to allow cornerback Xavier Lucas to enter the portal, he left school and transferred to Miami.

The NCAA, apparently having learned its lessons from multiple failed antitrust cases, opened the door to transfers outside the parameters of the portal.

“NCAA rules do not prevent a student-athlete from withdrawing from an institution, from enrolling at a new institution and compete immediately“, the NCAA said in a statement to Yahoo.com’s Ross Dellenger.

That’s another way of saying that the transfer portal means nothing. That players have the same freedom that students have to change schools whenever they want.

Taken to the extreme, could an Ohio State player transfer to Notre Dame before Monday night’s championship game, and vice versa? If “immediately” means immediately, maybe so.

There really is no solution to the free market experience now offered to those who previously paid for free. And there are only two ways to restore order at this point. One, to lobby Congress to create a national framework for paying college athletes and binding them to schools for certain contractual terms. Second, welcome a union that would function as a multi-employer bargaining unit, with a full Collective Bargaining Agreement that creates the same kind of rules that apply to professional athletes.

That’s the best outcome. Because they are professional athletes. The sooner the NCAA and its members completely and utterly turn the page on the corrupt system they have always perpetuated, the better off everyone will be.