In short, its crazy and only likely to get worse.
"More than 2,800 FBS scholarship players entered their names into the NCAA's transfer database during the 2023-24 school year. When you remove those who withdrew or went pro, the final total was 2,707 transfers.
To put that number in a broader perspective: That's 25% of all FBS scholarship players going into the portal in one year."
** Edit: sorry didn't realize that was paywall,. Let me try to copy/paste most of it. some graphs/pics won't share***
The wildest transfer portal cycle that college football has ever seen officially came to an end on Aug. 1.
The NCAA's transfer database has reset for a new calendar year. Teams' 2024 rosters are set. Preseason camps are well underway. We're mere weeks away from witnessing the impact of all the high-profile players who switched schools this offseason.
The 2023-24 transfer portal cycle, the sixth year of college programs utilizing the portal, should dramatically influence the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff race, but the effects of this record-setting cycle are sure to be more far-reaching than just a few title contenders becoming far more loaded.
After studying every FBS transfer transaction of the past 12 months and tracking where each player ended up, here are 10 things we learned.
More than 2,800 FBS scholarship players entered their names into the NCAA's transfer database during the 2023-24 school year. When you remove those who withdrew or went pro, the final total was 2,707 transfers.
To put that number in a broader perspective: That's 25% of all FBS scholarship players going into the portal in one year.
The end-of-cycle FBS transfer totals have jumped from 1,946 to 2,303 to more than 2,700 in a matter of two years, which is in no way surprising given the rapidly evolving nature of recruiting, NIL and roster construction across the sport.
There were 72 teams in FBS who lost 20 or more outgoing scholarship transfers this offseason. Two years ago, the number was 25 teams. Extreme offseason attrition has become normalized, and not just for rebuilds.
So far, 87% of these transfer players have announced where they're going next, which is right in line with previous portal cycles. But that still leaves hundreds of scholarship players stuck in the portal.
It's not hard to see how we got here. Annual roster attrition numbers keep rising. Coaches have more flexibility to replace whom they lose. Programs are investing more resources into scouting everyone else's rosters. Collectives have consolidated and strengthened their fundraising efforts over time. And these days, nobody is living in fear of getting turned in for tampering.
All of these factors have led to a portal market with more Power 4 opportunities available than ever before, which in turn motivates more and more players to test the market. We saw a record-high 610 Power 4-to-Power 4 transfers this offseason.
When you add in the fact that Power 4 schools also brought in more than 125 FCS/Division II transfers this offseason, the consequence is obvious: It truly has never been tougher for high school recruits to earn Power 4 scholarships.
The average transfer attrition for Power 4 schools this offseason was 20.1 scholarship players. The good news is almost 80% of those players who opted to transfer or were encouraged to leave managed to stay at the FBS level.
The total number of Group of 5 scholarship players moving up to Power 4 programs rose again this year from 238 to 272, which was 20% of all Group of 5 transfers. Once again, a huge number of proven players from the AAC, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt hit the open market and were rewarded.
A grand total of 88 players who earned all-conference recognition in 2023 ultimately transferred up to Power 4 schools. It's an impressive list this year, one that includes AAC Defensive Player of the Year Trey Moore (UTSA to Texas), AAC Special Teams Player of the Year LaJohntay Wester (FAU to Colorado), C-USA Offensive Player of the Year Diego Pavia (New Mexico State to Vanderbilt), MAC MVP Dequan Finn (Toledo to Baylor), MAC Offensive Player of the Year Peny Boone (Toledo to UCF) and Mountain West Freshman of the Year Jayden Maiava (UNLV to USC).
The big names on the move garnered all the attention, but the majority of Group of 5 scholarship transfers ended up moving down to FCS or lower-level schools. Only 44% of them were able to continue their playing careers at the FBS level this fall.
Indiana actually surpassed them under new head coach Curt Cignetti. The Hoosiers lost 37 scholarship players to the portal during their coaching transition. A dozen of them joined other Power 4 programs. Cignetti and his staff brought in more than 30 transfers to replace them, including 13 who followed Cignetti from James Madison.
You can see that same Year 1 trend playing out at the Group of 5 level with new coaches at UTEP (40), New Mexico State (39), San Diego State (39) and ULM (37) leading the way in offseason portal attrition. The fast flip method sure seems to be spreading.
Most scholarship transfers lost (2023-24)
40: UTEP
39: New Mexico State, San Diego State
37: Indiana, Louisiana-Monroe
36: Colorado
35: North Texas
34: FAU, Georgia State
33: Marshall, Michigan State, Old Dominion
32: Cincinnati
31: Alabama, Charlotte, New Mexico
30: Georgia Tech, Ohio, Western Kentucky
FBS programs going into Year 1 situations lost an average of 24.8 scholarship players to the portal in this cycle. But get this: The programs entering Year 2 averaged 24.7 outgoing transfers. Nebraska (8) and Stanford (10) avoided that approach, but they're the outliers. The rest are dealing with heavy attrition in their pursuit of expedited turnarounds. Current roster management rules continue to make it easy to try their own version of the Coach Prime plan.
As for those massive January coaching changes, Alabama ended up losing 31 scholarship players to the transfer portal amid Nick Saban's retirement. Of those 31, 27 stayed at the Power 5 level, 10 will play for SEC foes this fall and one Kadyn Proctor eventually came back. Washington went through a lot of departures (25), too. Michigan lost only 15 during its transition from Jim Harbaugh to Sherrone Moore.
Fewest scholarship transfers lost (2023-24)
3: Rice
7: Louisiana
8: BYU, Kansas, Nebraska
9: Iowa, Oklahoma State
10: Hawaii, Stanford
11: Northwestern, UTSA
12: Clemson, Fresno State, Miami (Ohio), Rutgers, Wyoming
In the past, coaches would tell you pulling off talent retention like this is all about quality program culture. In today's world, it's culture plus cash. Coaches at several of these schools pointed to the proactive steps they took between their staff and NIL collective to conduct the important end-of-season conversations early and do what it takes to keep key players on campus.
"We've been really good with NIL and what our approach has been over the last couple years," Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said. "I think when young men sit back and think before they take a big step of jumping in the portal, they realize Oklahoma State has done a good job. We've been very up-front and honest with incoming transfers and haven't overpaid them, for lack of a better term. We reward the players on our team and don't bring guys off the free agency market and flood them with an amount of money that would be unfair to the players that are on our team. I think, in the big picture, that's helped us maintain our roster."
This has the potential to be the most consequential QB transfer cycle of the portal era, which probably sounds absurd considering Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix all transferred after the 2021 season. Time will tell if this year's QB transfer crop can yield multiple Heisman Trophy winners, but there were many more scholarship QBs on the move this offseason (192) than in 2021-22 (158).
Expect 25 to 30 portal QBs to earn starting jobs at Power 4 programs this season and another 25 to 30 to earn Group of 5 jobs. When you combine FBS and FCS transfers, there are more than 75 new passers joining Power 4 rosters this season.
In this cycle, inking the best of the best required seven-figure investments. Preseason top-25 teams Ohio State (Will Howard), Oregon (Dillon Gabriel), Notre Dame (Riley Leonard), Florida State (DJ Uiagalelei) and Miami (Cam Ward) are all hoping they've found the guy who can lead them on deep College Football Playoff runs.
But there are also going to be long-term ramifications for the sport when so many young blue-chip recruits go back on the market before the end of their freshman year, including Julian Sayin (Alabama to Ohio State), Dante Moore (UCLA to Oregon), Aidan Chiles (Oregon State to Michigan State), Austin Mack (Washington to Alabama) and Jaden Rashada (Arizona State to Georgia).
A total of 401 FBS scholarship defensive linemen transferred during this 2023-24 cycle, but 135 of them (34%) ended up at FCS or smaller schools or went unsigned. So, really, you've got 134 schools fighting over 266 transfer D-linemen.
How many of those big men were actually Power 4-caliber performers? The final numbers are rather eye-opening. During the winter portal cycle, 90 defensive line transfers signed with Power 4 programs. In the spring, 166 more hit the portal. But only 45 were deemed good enough to land on Power 4 rosters.
We saw a bunch of CFP contenders competing over a small group of proven D-linemen in April. Scarcity meant top guys such as Tyler Baron (Louisville to Miami), Damonic Williams (TCU to Oklahoma), Simeon Barrow Jr. (Michigan State to Miami), Derrick Harmon (Michigan State to Oregon), Philip Blidi (Indiana to Auburn) and Jay Toia (stayed at UCLA) could seek even more NIL money.
For some teams seeking D-line upgrades, the math didn't add up. Brian Kelly took some heat in May for saying LSU is "not in the market of buying players" after missing out on Barrow and Williams. But once the big names go off the board, coaches are left having to overpay to acquire above-average talent.
The Tigers signed Gio Paez from Wisconsin and ended up taking a chance on Jay'viar Suggs, a Division II transfer from Grand Valley State. If that sounds like a bit of a reach, just know that close to 30 FCS defensive linemen also joined Power 4 programs this offseason. It'll be curious to see how the hit rate shakes out on the expensive additions as well as those more under-the-radar pickups who could surprise.
There were at least 59 instances of FBS players transferring in the winter and then transferring again in the spring, most notably Proctor's flip from Iowa back to Alabama and four Louisville newcomers (Baron, Boone, OL Reuben Unije and DB Wesley Walker) reentering the portal after going through spring practice.
If they meet academic requirements, those players won't have to fight the NCAA for immediate eligibility like North Carolina receiver Tez Walker and others did in 2023. Nearly 60% of these repeat transfers already had their degree and reentered the portal as grad transfers. But that leaves 288 players who have transferred multiple times in their career without graduating. That's the big concern among coaches and administrators going forward.
"One of the questions we have to ask ourselves is, at what point does the degree still matter?" Oregon coach Dan Lanning told ESPN this spring. "I think it's going to make it harder and harder if guys become multiyear transfer guys for them to actually have a college degree. If you graduate, there's a lot of times it makes sense -- change schools as many times as you want -- if you graduate. But on the same note, if somebody's changing schools three times, I'm wondering what their progress towards a degree really looks like. I think that's something everyone should probably have some awareness of."
Here's a more troubling observation: 119 of those 689 repeat transfers have not found a new school.
Nearly 92% of transfers who played for Power 5 programs last season have found a new home, leaving 100 who remain active in the portal and uncommitted. The numbers are much worse among Group of 5 transfers, with 256 players (19%) still available entering August. Most of them are post-spring transfers whose options upon entering the portal were more limited than they hoped.
Many factors that can play into why this happens: grades, eligibility concerns, injuries or health issues, legal trouble. Thanks to the additional season of eligibility granted to every college football player in 2020 due to COVID-19, we still have players putting their name in the portal to explore an extra season before electing to move on from football.
Regardless of the circumstances, it's disappointing to see that many players are still searching for new schools. It can be extremely difficult to find an FBS scholarship if you're stuck in the portal in June and July. Colorado, Nebraska and a small number of FBS programs have started hosting postgraduate summer camps to evaluate transfers who are still available, but there are no combines or convenient ways for these players to get discovered and offered.
At this point in the year, if they haven't given up, these transfers will likely have to settle for seeking a roster spot at the FCS, Division II, Division III, NAIA or junior college levels.
The assumption among college administrators -- or, really, the hope -- has been that the transfer portal would slow down as the 2020 players with extra eligibility finally cycled out. We're closing in on that milestone (the COVID freshmen will be sixth-year seniors next year), but now 2025 is setting up to be another unprecedented year for this wildly changing sport.
There's an immense amount of uncertainty surrounding next season's roster budgets now that the House settlement has launched a new era of revenue sharing in college athletics. Coaches and recruiting personnel need a lot more clarity on how this new world is going to work before the portal reopens on Dec. 9.
How are players, agents, coaches, GMs and ADs going to navigate that process? How will schools divide their institutional and collective funds? How will the shift to 105-man rosters influence recruiting decisions?
There's so much that must get sorted out over the next four months, but the answers to these questions will differ from school to school. At this point, it seems safe to forecast that another year of monumental changes across college football is sure to beget yet another memorably chaotic portal season.
"More than 2,800 FBS scholarship players entered their names into the NCAA's transfer database during the 2023-24 school year. When you remove those who withdrew or went pro, the final total was 2,707 transfers.
To put that number in a broader perspective: That's 25% of all FBS scholarship players going into the portal in one year."
** Edit: sorry didn't realize that was paywall,. Let me try to copy/paste most of it. some graphs/pics won't share***
The wildest transfer portal cycle that college football has ever seen officially came to an end on Aug. 1.
The NCAA's transfer database has reset for a new calendar year. Teams' 2024 rosters are set. Preseason camps are well underway. We're mere weeks away from witnessing the impact of all the high-profile players who switched schools this offseason.
The 2023-24 transfer portal cycle, the sixth year of college programs utilizing the portal, should dramatically influence the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff race, but the effects of this record-setting cycle are sure to be more far-reaching than just a few title contenders becoming far more loaded.
After studying every FBS transfer transaction of the past 12 months and tracking where each player ended up, here are 10 things we learned.
1. More than 2,700 on the move
In April, the NCAA officially eliminated its one-time transfer rule and initiated a new era of unlimited transfers. That mid-cycle policy change made it easier for more players to make moves and for schools to move on from underperforming talent. The result? For the second year in a row, FBS scholarship transfers increased by 18%.More than 2,800 FBS scholarship players entered their names into the NCAA's transfer database during the 2023-24 school year. When you remove those who withdrew or went pro, the final total was 2,707 transfers.
To put that number in a broader perspective: That's 25% of all FBS scholarship players going into the portal in one year.
The end-of-cycle FBS transfer totals have jumped from 1,946 to 2,303 to more than 2,700 in a matter of two years, which is in no way surprising given the rapidly evolving nature of recruiting, NIL and roster construction across the sport.
There were 72 teams in FBS who lost 20 or more outgoing scholarship transfers this offseason. Two years ago, the number was 25 teams. Extreme offseason attrition has become normalized, and not just for rebuilds.
So far, 87% of these transfer players have announced where they're going next, which is right in line with previous portal cycles. But that still leaves hundreds of scholarship players stuck in the portal.
2. Massive jump in Power 4 portal recruiting
A total of 883 FBS scholarship transfers landed on Power 4 rosters for the upcoming season. That's a huge deal, a massive jump for a single offseason. Last year, the total was 454. The previous year, it was 465.It's not hard to see how we got here. Annual roster attrition numbers keep rising. Coaches have more flexibility to replace whom they lose. Programs are investing more resources into scouting everyone else's rosters. Collectives have consolidated and strengthened their fundraising efforts over time. And these days, nobody is living in fear of getting turned in for tampering.
All of these factors have led to a portal market with more Power 4 opportunities available than ever before, which in turn motivates more and more players to test the market. We saw a record-high 610 Power 4-to-Power 4 transfers this offseason.
When you add in the fact that Power 4 schools also brought in more than 125 FCS/Division II transfers this offseason, the consequence is obvious: It truly has never been tougher for high school recruits to earn Power 4 scholarships.
The average transfer attrition for Power 4 schools this offseason was 20.1 scholarship players. The good news is almost 80% of those players who opted to transfer or were encouraged to leave managed to stay at the FBS level.
2024 Portal Numbers
With the latest portal cycle coming to an end, a look at the raw numbers.| Status | P4 | G5 | All |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signed | 1,270 | 1,078 | 2,348 |
| P4 | 610 | 273 | 883 |
| G5 | 475 | 310 | 785 |
| FCS | 155 | 414 | 569 |
| D2/D3/JC | 30 | 81 | 111 |
| Unsigned | 103 | 256 | 359 |
| Total | 1,373 | 1,334 | 2,707 |
3. Group of 5 talent drain continues
The portal era continues to be frustrating in many ways for coaches at the Group of 5 level who thrive on sharp talent evaluation but have a tough time holding on to their best players. The number of Group of 5-to-Power 5 transfers almost doubling last offseason further validated fears that, as one Group of 5 general manager put it, "we're becoming a Triple-A farm system."The total number of Group of 5 scholarship players moving up to Power 4 programs rose again this year from 238 to 272, which was 20% of all Group of 5 transfers. Once again, a huge number of proven players from the AAC, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West and Sun Belt hit the open market and were rewarded.
A grand total of 88 players who earned all-conference recognition in 2023 ultimately transferred up to Power 4 schools. It's an impressive list this year, one that includes AAC Defensive Player of the Year Trey Moore (UTSA to Texas), AAC Special Teams Player of the Year LaJohntay Wester (FAU to Colorado), C-USA Offensive Player of the Year Diego Pavia (New Mexico State to Vanderbilt), MAC MVP Dequan Finn (Toledo to Baylor), MAC Offensive Player of the Year Peny Boone (Toledo to UCF) and Mountain West Freshman of the Year Jayden Maiava (UNLV to USC).
The big names on the move garnered all the attention, but the majority of Group of 5 scholarship transfers ended up moving down to FCS or lower-level schools. Only 44% of them were able to continue their playing careers at the FBS level this fall.
4. Coach Prime's blueprint becoming popular
Colorado had 36 scholarship players transfer out of its program after Year 1 under Deion Sanders. But the Buffs did not lead all Power 4 schools in attrition this offseason.Indiana actually surpassed them under new head coach Curt Cignetti. The Hoosiers lost 37 scholarship players to the portal during their coaching transition. A dozen of them joined other Power 4 programs. Cignetti and his staff brought in more than 30 transfers to replace them, including 13 who followed Cignetti from James Madison.
You can see that same Year 1 trend playing out at the Group of 5 level with new coaches at UTEP (40), New Mexico State (39), San Diego State (39) and ULM (37) leading the way in offseason portal attrition. The fast flip method sure seems to be spreading.
Most scholarship transfers lost (2023-24)
40: UTEP
39: New Mexico State, San Diego State
37: Indiana, Louisiana-Monroe
36: Colorado
35: North Texas
34: FAU, Georgia State
33: Marshall, Michigan State, Old Dominion
32: Cincinnati
31: Alabama, Charlotte, New Mexico
30: Georgia Tech, Ohio, Western Kentucky
FBS programs going into Year 1 situations lost an average of 24.8 scholarship players to the portal in this cycle. But get this: The programs entering Year 2 averaged 24.7 outgoing transfers. Nebraska (8) and Stanford (10) avoided that approach, but they're the outliers. The rest are dealing with heavy attrition in their pursuit of expedited turnarounds. Current roster management rules continue to make it easy to try their own version of the Coach Prime plan.
As for those massive January coaching changes, Alabama ended up losing 31 scholarship players to the transfer portal amid Nick Saban's retirement. Of those 31, 27 stayed at the Power 5 level, 10 will play for SEC foes this fall and one Kadyn Proctor eventually came back. Washington went through a lot of departures (25), too. Michigan lost only 15 during its transition from Jim Harbaugh to Sherrone Moore.
5. Strong retention becoming rare
By the end of this portal cycle, there were only seven FBS programs that did not lose double-digit scholarship players to the transfer portal. Cheers to those select few programs that fought off the poachers and kept their teams together.Fewest scholarship transfers lost (2023-24)
3: Rice
7: Louisiana
8: BYU, Kansas, Nebraska
9: Iowa, Oklahoma State
10: Hawaii, Stanford
11: Northwestern, UTSA
12: Clemson, Fresno State, Miami (Ohio), Rutgers, Wyoming
In the past, coaches would tell you pulling off talent retention like this is all about quality program culture. In today's world, it's culture plus cash. Coaches at several of these schools pointed to the proactive steps they took between their staff and NIL collective to conduct the important end-of-season conversations early and do what it takes to keep key players on campus.
"We've been really good with NIL and what our approach has been over the last couple years," Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said. "I think when young men sit back and think before they take a big step of jumping in the portal, they realize Oklahoma State has done a good job. We've been very up-front and honest with incoming transfers and haven't overpaid them, for lack of a better term. We reward the players on our team and don't bring guys off the free agency market and flood them with an amount of money that would be unfair to the players that are on our team. I think, in the big picture, that's helped us maintain our roster."
6. Record-setting QB market
We're not deep into preseason camp yet, and there are so many ongoing quarterback competitions that won't be resolved until Week 1. But there could easily be more than 60 FBS teams that go with newly acquired transfers as their QB1 to start the season.This has the potential to be the most consequential QB transfer cycle of the portal era, which probably sounds absurd considering Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix all transferred after the 2021 season. Time will tell if this year's QB transfer crop can yield multiple Heisman Trophy winners, but there were many more scholarship QBs on the move this offseason (192) than in 2021-22 (158).
Expect 25 to 30 portal QBs to earn starting jobs at Power 4 programs this season and another 25 to 30 to earn Group of 5 jobs. When you combine FBS and FCS transfers, there are more than 75 new passers joining Power 4 rosters this season.
In this cycle, inking the best of the best required seven-figure investments. Preseason top-25 teams Ohio State (Will Howard), Oregon (Dillon Gabriel), Notre Dame (Riley Leonard), Florida State (DJ Uiagalelei) and Miami (Cam Ward) are all hoping they've found the guy who can lead them on deep College Football Playoff runs.
But there are also going to be long-term ramifications for the sport when so many young blue-chip recruits go back on the market before the end of their freshman year, including Julian Sayin (Alabama to Ohio State), Dante Moore (UCLA to Oregon), Aidan Chiles (Oregon State to Michigan State), Austin Mack (Washington to Alabama) and Jaden Rashada (Arizona State to Georgia).
7. Good year to be a good D-lineman
What program couldn't use a little more help along the defensive line? The recruiting battles for transfer edge rushers, defensive ends and interior defensive linemen are always intense, and the impact ones are worth a lot. This year, the D-line market was especially interesting to track during the spring transfer window.A total of 401 FBS scholarship defensive linemen transferred during this 2023-24 cycle, but 135 of them (34%) ended up at FCS or smaller schools or went unsigned. So, really, you've got 134 schools fighting over 266 transfer D-linemen.
How many of those big men were actually Power 4-caliber performers? The final numbers are rather eye-opening. During the winter portal cycle, 90 defensive line transfers signed with Power 4 programs. In the spring, 166 more hit the portal. But only 45 were deemed good enough to land on Power 4 rosters.
We saw a bunch of CFP contenders competing over a small group of proven D-linemen in April. Scarcity meant top guys such as Tyler Baron (Louisville to Miami), Damonic Williams (TCU to Oklahoma), Simeon Barrow Jr. (Michigan State to Miami), Derrick Harmon (Michigan State to Oregon), Philip Blidi (Indiana to Auburn) and Jay Toia (stayed at UCLA) could seek even more NIL money.
For some teams seeking D-line upgrades, the math didn't add up. Brian Kelly took some heat in May for saying LSU is "not in the market of buying players" after missing out on Barrow and Williams. But once the big names go off the board, coaches are left having to overpay to acquire above-average talent.
The Tigers signed Gio Paez from Wisconsin and ended up taking a chance on Jay'viar Suggs, a Division II transfer from Grand Valley State. If that sounds like a bit of a reach, just know that close to 30 FCS defensive linemen also joined Power 4 programs this offseason. It'll be curious to see how the hit rate shakes out on the expensive additions as well as those more under-the-radar pickups who could surprise.
8. Repeat transfers on the rise
The NCAA's one-time transfer rules being suspended in December and ultimately eliminated in April had a noticeable impact on both transfer windows. The number of repeat transfers among FBS scholarship players more than doubled from 300 to 689. That's 25% of all transfer players in this offseason cycle.There were at least 59 instances of FBS players transferring in the winter and then transferring again in the spring, most notably Proctor's flip from Iowa back to Alabama and four Louisville newcomers (Baron, Boone, OL Reuben Unije and DB Wesley Walker) reentering the portal after going through spring practice.
If they meet academic requirements, those players won't have to fight the NCAA for immediate eligibility like North Carolina receiver Tez Walker and others did in 2023. Nearly 60% of these repeat transfers already had their degree and reentered the portal as grad transfers. But that leaves 288 players who have transferred multiple times in their career without graduating. That's the big concern among coaches and administrators going forward.
"One of the questions we have to ask ourselves is, at what point does the degree still matter?" Oregon coach Dan Lanning told ESPN this spring. "I think it's going to make it harder and harder if guys become multiyear transfer guys for them to actually have a college degree. If you graduate, there's a lot of times it makes sense -- change schools as many times as you want -- if you graduate. But on the same note, if somebody's changing schools three times, I'm wondering what their progress towards a degree really looks like. I think that's something everyone should probably have some awareness of."
Here's a more troubling observation: 119 of those 689 repeat transfers have not found a new school.
9. More than 350 stuck in portal
How many FBS scholarship players entered the portal and have yet to appear on a 2024 roster or announce where they're going? The count is currently 356.Nearly 92% of transfers who played for Power 5 programs last season have found a new home, leaving 100 who remain active in the portal and uncommitted. The numbers are much worse among Group of 5 transfers, with 256 players (19%) still available entering August. Most of them are post-spring transfers whose options upon entering the portal were more limited than they hoped.
Many factors that can play into why this happens: grades, eligibility concerns, injuries or health issues, legal trouble. Thanks to the additional season of eligibility granted to every college football player in 2020 due to COVID-19, we still have players putting their name in the portal to explore an extra season before electing to move on from football.
Regardless of the circumstances, it's disappointing to see that many players are still searching for new schools. It can be extremely difficult to find an FBS scholarship if you're stuck in the portal in June and July. Colorado, Nebraska and a small number of FBS programs have started hosting postgraduate summer camps to evaluate transfers who are still available, but there are no combines or convenient ways for these players to get discovered and offered.
At this point in the year, if they haven't given up, these transfers will likely have to settle for seeking a roster spot at the FCS, Division II, Division III, NAIA or junior college levels.
10. Coming soon: More chaos
What will it take for the annual number of FBS scholarship transfers to start declining?The assumption among college administrators -- or, really, the hope -- has been that the transfer portal would slow down as the 2020 players with extra eligibility finally cycled out. We're closing in on that milestone (the COVID freshmen will be sixth-year seniors next year), but now 2025 is setting up to be another unprecedented year for this wildly changing sport.
There's an immense amount of uncertainty surrounding next season's roster budgets now that the House settlement has launched a new era of revenue sharing in college athletics. Coaches and recruiting personnel need a lot more clarity on how this new world is going to work before the portal reopens on Dec. 9.
How are players, agents, coaches, GMs and ADs going to navigate that process? How will schools divide their institutional and collective funds? How will the shift to 105-man rosters influence recruiting decisions?
There's so much that must get sorted out over the next four months, but the answers to these questions will differ from school to school. At this point, it seems safe to forecast that another year of monumental changes across college football is sure to beget yet another memorably chaotic portal season.
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