The college football transfer portal is an opportunity for thousands of athletes every year to improve their situation at a new school, whether for more playing time, better NIL, or a better team culture fit. Most of the headlines surround the great stories of players who transfer from a small G5 of FCS school and end up starting at a big P4 program.
But it isn’t always greener on the other side for players who enter the transfer portal. In fact, for many, it is the grave to their college football playing careers.
Record Number of Transfers Will Not Find a Home
![BREAKING: Record Number of College Football Transfers Will Not Find a Home in 2024 1 1689138038.0.jpg](https://gridironheroics.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1689138038.0.jpg-1024x682.webp)
According to On3 Sports, 3,262 players entered their names into the transfer portal this year. Of those, 2,045 have found a new home (or returned home), and 1,217 are still left without a home for the upcoming 2024 season. This number will continue to go down; however, looking at last year’s numbers, we see that about 950 players didn’t have a new school at this same time.
In other words, about 250 more players are still without a new team this year than last.
Last year, once the calendar hit June 15th, very few players were picked up for rosters. At this point, teams are looking at the personnel, and if they needed a player, they would have addressed that in the last two months, not two months away from the season’s kickoff. The exceptions would be offseason injuries, or off the field issues.
Nearly One-Third of Transfers Never Find a New College Football Home
![BREAKING: Record Number of College Football Transfers Will Not Find a Home in 2024 2 Transfer Portal Players, College Football](https://gridironheroics.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/1D6E27ED-783D-43F3-8E13-F6D9B75AF1CA-1024x576.jpeg)
Another good data point is the percentage of transfers who never find a new team. Here are the results for the past four years.
- 2021: 67.2%
- 2022: 67.5%
- 2023: 64.8%
- 2024 (So Far): 63.6%
In other words, the data shows that about 65-66% of players who enter the portal find a new home. If that were the case, we can expect that another 110 or so players will still get picked up in this cycle. For this not to be the transfer class with the most players left out, about 71% of the transfer class would need to find a new school, which, based on the current numbers and past results, is almost mathematically impossible.
Can This Issue Be Fixed?
![BREAKING: Record Number of College Football Transfers Will Not Find a Home in 2024 3 Transfer Portal NCAA Football](https://gridironheroics.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/NCAA-Transfer-Portal-1024x535.jpg)
One thing to consider that rarely gets talked about is that every year, teams make cuts, or players walk away from the team due to not playing or getting valuable practice reps. These players never get talked about because they are normally the fourth—or fifth-string players that nobody has ever seen play at the college level. So, in some ways, the transfer portal is a personal hail mary to try to stay in the sport.
But what about the backup players who would have gotten a chance to play had they never transferred?
The solution will have to come from some kind of committee that currently doesn’t exist. Whether that means creating a college football board or moving through Congress, there needs to be some kind of rules and regulations that will encourage players, although not force, them to stay at their current school. Whether that means tying NIL to a contract, only allowing transfers to one transfer, or allowing players a week or so to contact schools outside of the transfer window in privacy, could all prevent the high number of players stuck without a new home.
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College Football Transfer Portal Report: Over 50% of Players Will Transfer at Some Point