LSU HC Brian Kelly provides the smartest comments yet on how to properly utilize the NCAA transfer portal

LSU Tigers head coach Brian Kelly offered some wise comments on the best way to utilize the NCAA transfer portal on Monday while at the podium at SEC Media Days in Dallas.

Up until the introduction of the NCAA transfer portal in 2018, the primary way to build a college football roster was via high school recruiting. Transfers happened, but players were required to sit out a year before being declared eligible to play (unless they were a graduate transfer). There were also strict intraconference transfer rules in place in some instances.

Now that players can transfer freely (and as often as they want), the transfer portal has become another way that programs can build their roster. But it's not exactly a sustainable way to build a program, which is what Kelly noted on Monday while speaking with reporters.

"The transfer portal is what I always thought it would be in that it can't be strictly need based," said Kelly. "If you're in the transfer portal for need based -- in other words, you're filling needs, you haven't done something right in the natural recruiting season. And last year it was need based. And that's never a good situation when it comes to the development of your football program.

"I think you need to use the transfer portal to top off the tank so to speak. That you can add to a particular position and almost one that is not needed, but becomes a luxury. If you can get to that situation, I think that the transfer portal becomes an effective tool. But if it's strictly need based, you're probably in for some rough seas."

Kelly is spot on with that take on the transfer portal. Relying on the transfer portal might be a quick fix for some programs -- especially in the early stages of a rebuild (specifically when a new coach is hired), but it's not a good longterm answer.

Culture is an overused word at times in sports, but that doesn't take away from the fact that a good culture (and that can look a lot of different ways) is synonymous with success. And it's tough to build a good culture if you're constantly living in the transfer portal. For starters, the timing of the transfer portal doesn't allow much time for coaches to delve into a player's background/personality. A player can look like a good fit after a conversation or two, but prove to be a terrible fit once things get real.

(There might be an instance where a program needs to find an offensive tackle, for example, because of an injury or because players left the program. There are times when a need like that can be filled through the portal. But that can't be the norm. Otherwise, like Kelly suggested, you're going to be in for some rough seas.)

The transfer portal is a tool that can put a team over the top. But it's not a tool that's going to allow programs to retool and reload every offseason while still competing for championships. There are coaches who treat it that way -- Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss and Deion Sanders at Colorado, for example -- but they'll soon find out that the portal is never going to be the way to find sustained success in college football.

It's really not that different from how MLB teams operate. Teams that try to win championships via big spending on free agents (looking at you, New York Yankees) rarely seem to win championships. Instead, it's the teams that build their teams via a strong farm system and free agency (like the Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves in recent years) that are the most successful.

Related: How Arch Manning unknowingly helped the Tennessee Vols in a big way