I've said and complained about this from the start. Transfer portal and NIL money is a double whammy for a school like MTSU.
Schools that have deep pockets are going to just buy their way into championships and competing on the big stage, and part of that will be just paying better players from programs like ours to migrate over. That's really bad news for MTSU and schools like us. We are one of the poorest D1 schools in the country when you look at our endowment combined with our lack of community support and lack of big booster $$$. We just don't have it. We are perpetually broke, pinching pennies, and playing SEC road games just to stay afloat.
If we are being honest with ourselves, we are right where we belong. We might have had a chance in the old days when kids had to sit a year and you couldn't just offer someone 100k to leave MT and come play for you. This allowed us to keep the talent we have and, in the right circumstances, develop a very talented roster that could possibly run the table (We never did it, but some MWC, AAC, and MAC schools did).
But now that kids can transfer for free, and schools can just buy our players, we are no more than a glorified JUCO. Same goes for other G5's I guess (I don't like this argument)....but it hurts us even more IMO because of just how broke we are. We can't even get a collective going for our guys for crying out loud. Nobody cares. At least some other G5's can pay their players SOMETHING. Many MWC and AAC schools are getting their players paid. Even some SBC.