On the negative, it could mean:
- The staff really missed on talent evaluation up front
- The environment is such that players want to leave. (Could be the culture of the team, academic expectations, etc.)
On the plus:
- ND is open and honest when a player doesn’t have a path to the field, and they move along voluntarily.
- ND isn’t afraid to scare off under achievers.
My own view as a manager is that it is tough to build a high performing team with significant turnover. If 20-25% of the team is turning over naturally due to graduation/exhaustion of eligibility, and another 26% is turning over due to transfers, that means almost half the team is turning over in any given year. (Some of the transfers are grad transfers, so there would be some double counts in there.)