Over 3,150 players have entered the transfer portal, but a shockingly high number of them have not yet found a new place to play. With every college football team done with their spring practices, one has to wonder how many more roster spots will be filled as teams try to finalize their depth charts and rosters.
50% of College Football Transfer Portal Players Have No Home…Yet
According to ON3 Sports Recruiting, 3,160 players have entered the portal, but only 1,588 have committed to a new school, and an additional 100 have decided to return to their old school. That means 47% of players do not have a new home.
Should these players be worried? Depends.
About 1,200 players who entered the portal in December and January and still have no landing spot may be starting to feel anxious. They realize the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Most of these remaining players weren’t starters at a P4 or even G5 schols so why would a team want to bring them in now when spring football is already over?
For about another 600 players who have entered the portal in the last few weeks, many of them probably still feel like they are in a good spot or that at least they have a really good chance of landing at a new school.
How Many Players Won’t Find a New Team?
Last year, only about 65% of the players who entered the transfer portal end up finding a new home. But that was out of about 2650 players. It is very possible that this year that number could be 3500 players which would make this uncharted territory in regards to the amount of players looking for a new home.
Watching recent trends, as well as looking at how teams added players in the transfer portal last year, unfortunately, I feel somewhat confident saying that it would be a shock if 65% of the players this year ended up transferring to new schools.
The transfer portal is currently safe for starting players at P4 schools. Anyone who started at a P4 school can probably find another starting position at another P for school, or at worst; they start a position with a G5 program. Assuming this takes up at least 15% of the transfer portal players, that would mean that a non-started-before player May realistically only have a 50% chance of landing at a new school.
What Will The Future Look Like?
Last year, after seeing only 65% of the players get picked up, I predicted that the transfer portal would somewhat slow down. Obviously, that did not happen. With transfer portal windows now being essentially nonexistent and the number of times transfers have been unlimited, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where the number of transfer portal players goes down.
However, at the same time, the data suggests that unless a player is a starting player at a P4 for school, it may not be wise to enter the transfer portal. And at some point, being a second or third-string player and receiving at least a bit of Anaël is better than not playing at all and receiving nothing. But any player believes they will be a future NFL star. That is the mindset of most players, and it is a good mindset to have, frankly. So, for them, entering the transfer portal can only require more NIL money for any better plane opportunity.
Last week, I wrote an article in which it was discovered that nearly 75% of players are on track to transfer at some point in their careers. Unless there is a mindset change or data that is clearly shown to players to convince them not to leave, I would have to say that there’s a good chance that 4000 players may enter the transfer for the next year, with nearly 2000 never finding a new team to play for/
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