With the college football 2023–24 regular season-ending last Saturday, over 1,000 football players have entered the transfer portal looking for a new opportunity at a different school. Although many players enter the transfer portal, many end up never leaving and never finding a school to play at.
Many schools, such as those in Kentucky, Missouri and Minnesota, utilize the transfer portal like no other. In my opinion, schools should use the transfer portal because it is a superior way for players to get new opportunities as well as for schools to get new players and build up their programs.
Some schools don’t use the transfer portal and instead just rely on recruiting. Clemson is one of the schools that didn’t use the transfer portal, and they had a subpar season by losing to schools like Duke and Miami, Florida which in past years they usually destroyed. I think this old way of not using the transfer portal is going to go away, and if schools don’t adapt, they will die out.
In the transfer portal for football, many big-name players are transferring out of their original schools. Players such as Cam Ward, Walter Nolen, Aidan Chiles and Dante Moore. With these players transferring, many schools focus more on getting these big-name players than recruiting high school players. In a way, this can be very successful for schools, but they can also be gambling away their future.
Right now, the college football transfer portal is at the top of every sports page, but the transfer portal for college basketball is also something to pay attention to. This past summer and fall, many college basketball players transferred out of their original schools, like Omaha’s very own Hunter Sallis. Sallis originally committed to Gonzaga in his senior year of high school while attending Millard North. After playing at Gonzaga for a year, Sallis transferred to Wake Forest University. I believe this was the best move for Sallis because he is now part of the starting five at Wake Forest, and if he had stayed at Gonzaga, he would have most likely been coming off the bench and had much less playing time.
Many other big-name and high-rated college basketball players transferred schools last season as well. Marcus Adams Jr. transferred from Kansas to BYU, and James Okonkwo transferred from West Virginia to North Carolina. Out of all the schools that are active in the transfer portal, I believe that Kansas did the best with guys such as Arterio Morris, Hunter Dickinson and Nick Timberlake. All the players Kansas got were either four- or five-star-rated players.
The transfer for college basketball can sometimes be way more competitive than college football, just for the reason that college basketball rosters are much smaller than college football rosters. Even though it can be more competitive, I still personally believe that the college football transfer portal is much more intriguing and has more news and rumors around it.
While we begin to enter the end of college football and the start of the regular season for college basketball, the transfer portal will be active. Teams to look out for in the transfer portal for football are Colorado, LSU and Ole Miss. For college basketball, don’t be surprised if Creighton, Indiana, and Kansas start making some more moves in the transfer portal.
