re: Kirby Smart sure is treating this Fields transfer with kid gloves. I guess he doesn't want

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I think the coach/school can still prohibit transfers. A big deal was made about Dabo giving one of his players a free and clear release to transfer to USC this year. That would not have been a big deal if he had no power to prevent it.

Which means Fields will not be playing in the SEC.

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Okay, I was a little fuzzy on exactly how the new rules worked. It's a bit more complicated than I was saying. From a USA Today article:

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Currently, an athlete must ask a coach for permission to contact other schools when choosing to transfer. A school interested in recruiting a transferring player also must ask the current school for permission to recruit. Without permission from the original school, the athlete cannot get financial aid from another school, essentially blocking a transfer.

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Assuming I'm understanding correctly, the coach can't restrict where the recruit goes or who he contacts, not so much because the NCAA took that power away from the coach (though they kinda did) but because the NCAA took the teeth out of that power. Individual conferences, though, might have their own rules about contact if not financial aid, and since schools agree to abide by the conference rules as requisite to being part of the conference, those rules might supersede the NCAA rules.