Three factors caused the mess we currently have
1. MLB draft going from 40 to 5. Then 40 to 20.
- College junior offered 60k to sign in round 27? Good bye
- HS kid in a low income household with his parents wondering how they're going to afford the other 50% of tuition the scholarship doesn't cover? 225k in Rd 31 looks like a lot of money.
2. Covid year extra eligibility
3. Penalty free transfers
The covid year players will be phasing out in the next year or two, so that will correct itself. What will take a few more years to correct itself is the kids who redshirted because the covid year players came back and retained their roles. Five years maybe before it evens out. That being said, things were not great before covid.
That leads us to the transfer players. I personally don't think you should be able to transfer in conference, perhaps that would fix some of it, but either way it's still rampant. Now there are the haves and the have nots. Those who have poach, those who do not have their studs poached. Simple as that. What it has done is shrunk HS recruiting classes for the poachers.