There are no winners when the NCAA transfer window opens.
Sure, hundreds and hundreds of college football players are rewarded with new offers and opportunities. But their recruitments are just getting started. Nobody becomes the Portal King on Day 1. If you ask the staff members in recruiting departments whose entire Monday was just consumed by the portal, they say success is defined a little differently on the first day that underclassmen can officially transfer. If they didn’t unexpectedly lose any players they hoped to keep, it was a good day.
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“It’s more terrifying than exciting,” a Power 5 recruiting staffer said.
The dizzying first day of the winter transfer window brought a record-setting amount of roster attrition for teams throughout the sport. It’s time to dig into the numbers, names and trends from the most important day of the 2023-24 transfer cycle.
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Take that for data
A total of 538 FBS scholarship players put their name in the NCAA transfer portal on Monday. That’s an 18 percent increase from last year’s opening day of portal activity. But that group of players — 305 from Power 5 programs, 233 from the Group of 5 — doesn’t come close to measuring the magnitude on Monday.
Because there were also nearly 100 walk-ons who entered the portal. And there were a whopping 416 players from FCS schools who also opted to transfer. Last year, the FCS transfer window opened two weeks earlier than the FBS window. This gave college football coaches more time to evaluate those lower-level players before the more coveted transfers hit the market. This year? The portal opened on the same day for both subdivisions.
Add up every college football player who appeared in the transfer portal over the course of Monday, and you get a grand total of 1,127. That represents a 44 percent increase from the previous record-setting day of 780 entries on Dec. 5, 2022.
In the next few days, the number of FBS scholarship players available in the transfer portal will surpass 1,000. How packed is the transfer portal after all of Monday’s entries? Here’s a breakdown of the 901 uncommitted scholarship players by position:
Quarterbacks: 86
Running backs: 78
Wide receivers: 152
Tight ends: 51
Offensive linemen: 137
Defensive linemen: 106
Linebackers: 103
Defensive backs: 177
Specialists: 25
Eleven FBS programs lost double-digit scholarship players to the portal on Monday. South Carolina led the way with 15 players moving on after a 5-7 season, though only three of them started games this season. NC State, Vanderbilt and Western Michigan all lost 14 on the day, and Cincinnati was right behind them at 13.
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Only two Power 5 programs have had zero underclassmen enter the transfer portal so far in this cycle: Michigan and Northwestern. Who’s got it better than them?
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Who does everybody want?
The fact that more than a hundred players announced ahead of time that they were planning to hit the portal on Monday took some of the suspense out of the daylong experience of tracking who’s on the move. In some ways, though, it also heightened the excitement around surprise entries.
Oklahoma’s Dillon Gabriel and Oregon State’s Aidan Chiles were the two quarterback transactions that really stood out. Gabriel is coming off an All-Big 12 season and could enter the NFL Draft but is taking some time to explore his options. There’s not a more proven senior QB out there than the 49-game starter. Chiles is the opposite but no less exciting: a true freshman who impressed in limited action this season and has all the tools to be special. With all due respect to UCLA’s Dante Moore, Chiles might be the most exciting developmental QB prospect in the portal.
Who else are recruiting staffers excited about? One name that came up a few times: Duke defensive end R.J. Oben. The 6-foot-4, 260-pound pass rusher was a three-year starter for the Blue Devils who has recorded 20 tackles for loss, 14.5 sacks and five forced fumbles in his career. Perhaps the next head coach at Duke can convince him to stay, but Oben is a hot commodity right now.
As is always the case, there’s a lot of talent at the wide receiver position now available in the portal, with South Carolina’s Antwane Wells Jr., Ohio State’s Julian Fleming and the Vanderbilt duo of Will Sheppard and London Humphreys leading the way. Wells missed most of this season due to injury but is viewed as a premium transfer prospect among recruiters if healthy after finishing fifth in the SEC in receiving yards (928) in 2021.
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Another annual December tradition: There aren’t nearly enough quality tight ends on the market to meet demand. There are some really good ones in the portal at the moment, and UConn’s Justin Joly and Arizona State’s Jalin Conyers have instantly become among the most coveted players out there and are already lining up official visits.
There is one highly anticipated development in this portal cycle that hasn’t played out yet. Though former five-star signee Walter Nolen did announce he plans to transfer and safety Jardin Gilbert has done the same, Texas A&M did not enter any players into the portal on Monday. New coach Mike Elko is going to work tirelessly to convince these players to stay put and give him a chance. Are we going to see an exodus on Tuesday, or could the Aggies get through this period without much roster damage?
The news that dynamic Oregon State freshman Aidan Chiles was on the move shook up the quarterback market. (Soobum Im / USA Today)Quarterback wild cards
Ohio State’s Kyle McCord becoming one of the very first players to enter the portal early Monday morning was an unanticipated development that makes this transfer QB market a lot more interesting.
Most did not see it coming, though Ohio State was already monitoring and evaluating the transfer QBs over the past week just in case. We don’t know enough about why McCord is exiting after one season as the Buckeyes’ starter. But we do know they need one now. And that could be a game-changer for this cycle.
Ohio State’s starting quarterback has finished in the top 10 in Heisman voting eight times since 2012. McCord couldn’t quite play up to that elite standard, but that tradition is going to be extremely appealing to the top passers in the portal. The question now is who does head coach Ryan Day like? And will that decision be the one that sets off a domino effect?
This guessing game of who’s going where is fun to play: Maybe it’ll be Gabriel for Oregon, Will Howard for USC, Cameron Ward for Miami and Will Rogers for Washington. Or maybe that’s not even close to correct. Ward picking Ohio State, for example, would probably set off a run of commitments by his peers. The more chaotic move would be circling back on Duke’s Riley Leonard, whom everyone assumes is Notre Dame-bound. Making a move for him could become very disruptive for a bunch of quarterbacks and schools and what they’re currently planning to do.
With Devin Brown and Lincoln Kienholz on board and Air Noland on the way, you could make the case that Ohio State doesn’t need to take a big swing on a transfer if it’s not sold on the options. Then again, the Big Ten isn’t getting any easier in 2024.
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The copycat game
The process of sorting through hundreds of players in a matter of hours and determining who needs to be evaluated and offered is not easy, no matter how many staffers you have assigned to these duties. Here’s one nifty little shortcut: You could check social media and see who your opponents are offering.
I’m not saying that’s how it’s done. Good players always rack up lots of scholarship offers in rapid succession as soon as they enter the portal. But people in the personnel space tend to get a little suspicious when a player they found and offered suddenly sees his recruitment blow up.
“It’s a copycat world,” one Big 12 director of player personnel said. “Once they have one offer, they have 25.”
He pointed to Kent State wide receiver Trell Harris as one example. The sophomore wideout did not put up big stats (26 catches, 399 yards, one TD) on a 1-11 team this season, but there’s a lot to like about his talent on tape. Pitt offered within the first half hour that he was in the portal. Eight more schools quickly followed.
For players like Harris, tweeting out that first Power 5 offer can really get the ball rolling and put you on the radar for many more. If you think you’ve discovered a hidden gem, you’re not going to be able to keep them a secret for long.
Kansas State cornerback Will Lee III is another one whose recruitment exploded on Monday morning. He announced last week that he would enter the portal, which did give these teams some extra time to make an assessment and meant he had a few offers to share as soon as he officially entered. An offer from USC helped kick off a crazy run: LSU, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Washington, Auburn, Florida, Texas A&M and likely many more. Not bad for a one-year starter.
Buchner pivots to lacrosse
Tyler Buchner’s portal decision was by far the most surprising twist of the day.
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Back in the spring, Buchner faced a tough decision. Should the Notre Dame transfer go to Alabama to reunite with offensive coordinator Tommy Rees and compete for the job? Or should he pick a less prominent school where he’d be a lock to start? He bet on himself and joined the Crimson Tide, where he got one big opportunity — 26 snaps against USF — before spending the rest of the year as Jalen Milroe’s backup.
Now he’s back in the transfer portal. Why leave? Because Buchner has evidently decided to move on from football and focus on playing lacrosse.
Alabama entered him into the portal as a men’s lacrosse athlete on Monday even though the school does not actually sponsor that sport. He’s reportedly planning to re-enroll at Notre Dame and join their national championship program.
Buchner was such a talented lacrosse player growing up that he actually committed to Michigan as an eighth grader. Now he’s going to give it the old college try. If that’s what makes him happiest after three years of ups and downs in college football, that’s pretty darn cool.
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(Photo of Dillon Gabriel: Brian Bahr / Getty Images)
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