Last December, the biggest college football stories weren’t the bowl games, the players opting out ahead of the NFL Draft, or even the coaching moves around college football. Instead, most of the country was captivated by the transfer portal. Fans watched, hoping their top players wouldn’t be entering the portal while at the same time hoping for some big-name signings.
This continued through January-June, but it may have finally ended. At least as much as it possibly can.
Transfer Portal Doesn’t Ever Close (Not Really)
Even if the transfer portal windows are inactive, the transfer portal never stops. There are reports of teams like Kansas State reaching out to G5 players while the season continues. A handful of players also sit out the end of their seasons due to “injury,” but they are just entering the portal and waiting for it to officially open.
With the transfer portal never really closing, right now may be the closest we ever get to not having any (or hardly any) news about players transferring or signing with a new team.
Only Five Players Have Committed in the Last Week
A few weeks ago, I observed that the transfer portal had slowed down since the start of June. Since then, the numbers have continued to plummet. Since July 1st, only eight players have signed with a new team, only one player every two days.
According to On3 Sports, 1,187 players have entered the portal but have not yet signed up for a new team.
So why the slow down?
At this point, if a team is still looking at getting players from the transfer portal, there are probably bigger issues. Of course, there are exceptions to this, including players quitting, injuries, or eligibility issues, which would, of course, lead to a team dipping into the portal to fill in the gap, but for the most part, all of these players have been in the portal for 2-8 months. If nobody wanted them for this long, why is there suddenly a demand?
There are very few coaches that use the transfer portal as well as Kalen DeBoer.
Now, he’s bringing that expertise to the best brand in college football.
He told me how he’s doing it ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/miHT33oPfb
— Adam Breneman (@AdamBreneman81) July 2, 2024
What’s Next?
Every year there are players who are either deemed ineligible, get hurt during Fall Camp, or in some cases there are even coaching changes, such as what happened at Fresno State yesterday. When this happens, it is still possible that players could be picked up even into Fall Camp.
Last year, a handful of players were picked up in August to fill these kinds of needs.
So what happens to the rest? Unfortunately, well over 1,000 players will end up not finding a new team to play for. Looking at the last few years of data, about 64-67% of transfer portal players get picked up by a new team. This year, the number of players who have not yet committed sits at exactly 64%, which sits at the low end of the recent data but still within the range.
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