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As expected, college football’s offseason transfer portal window was a complete disaster, running for two consecutive weeks resulting in more than 6,700 Division 1 players entering their names into the portal.
The transfer window will close for most players on Friday. Players who wish to enter the portal in 2026 and play elsewhere must notify their school by midnight.
There is no deadline for deciding where they are going next. Players from Indiana and Miami will have the opportunity to transfer next week after the College Football Playoff national championship. But for everyone else, this is the last chance to take action.
The non-stop series of transfer transactions officially began on January 2. As we get closer to the finish line, here are five takeaways from a portal window that coaches, general managers, staff, agents and players agree was the greatest experience they’ve ever had.
pay more or lose
This January portal window was unlike anything we have seen since the transfer portal was first established in 2018. The reduction of the offseason transfer window to a two-week period and the elimination of the spring transfer window meant that teams would have to make all of their purchases for 2026 as quickly as possible.
The resulting portal cycle played out as expected: high speeds, high pressure, high prices.
The price tag for the top returning quarterback this offseason ran in the $3 million to $5 million range, which was no shock, industry sources told ESPN. Several agents told ESPN that they had no trouble finding deals of $1 million or more for the offensive tackles and defensive linemen they represented on the portal.
Industry sources say Colorado attacks aggressively Jordan SeatonThe No. 1 uncommitted player in ESPN’s transfer rankings can essentially name his price now that he’s officially on the open market. There is little precedent in the NFL era for a potential first-round NFL draft pick at left tackle entering the portal before his junior year. Seaton visited Mississippi State on Thursday.
While players like Seaton and Cam ColemanWhile the No. 1-ranked receivers transferring from Auburn to Texas are rare outliers at their respective positions, the sentiment among front office staff and agents surveyed by ESPN was that teams knew they would have to spend more now without a spring transfer portal to rely on later.
“These are your options,” an agent told ESPN. “If you have holes, you either can’t afford or you can overpay.”
Front offices and agents continued to operate this month with little fear of a College Sports Commission or NIL go, especially during the CSC Partnership agreements remain unsigned. They continue to make deals funded by a combination of rev-share and third-party money.
It is clear that this will become an important topic in college athletics going forward as the CSC attempts to initiate investigations and enforcement. But when the portal is open and hundreds of players are making commitments every day, schools can’t hesitate. They are paying whatever is required to sign the player now and will decide the rest later.
another pack cubby carousel
The transfer quarterback market was as active as ever with nearly 200 FBS scholarship quarterbacks. It’s not a record-setting number, but the thing about this year’s Portal QB crop is this: 40% were repeat transfers.
The timetable for taking the first steps is clearly moving forward. After this QB carousel, 13 of the 17 quarterbacks in the 2024 ESPN 300 have transferred at least once air noland (Memphis), Michael Van Buren Jr.. (USF), Luke Cromenhoek (USF) and Haus Hejni (Colorado State) Going to his third school in three years.
And we’ve seen eight ESPN 300 quarterbacks step into the portal in the 2025 class deuce night (Auburn to Ole Miss) and husan longstreet (USC to LSU) is taking big steps this season after redshirting.
Since this is such a short list, let’s get on with it: Here are all of the top-50 quarterback recruits in ESPN’s rankings from 2020-2023. Not there. Transferred, changed positions or retired during his college career.
2020(4): bryce young (Alabama), CJ Stroud (Ohio State), Anthony Richardson Sr.. (Florida), Garrett Green (West Virginia)
2021(5): JJ McCarthy (Michigan), drake may (North Carolina), Garrett Nussmeyer (LSU), Jalen Miller (Alabama), bahren morton (texas tech)
2022(5): cad klubnik (Clemson), ty simpson (Alabama), Drew Allar (Penn State), gunner stockton (Georgia), Sam Horn (Missouri)
2023(7): arch manning (texas), Christopher Vizina (Clemson), avery johnson (Kansas State), marcel reid (Texas A&M), Lanoris Cellars (South Carolina), emory williams (Miami), tucker mcdonald (Yukon)
Retention isn’t cheap
A common belief entering this offseason portal cycle was that schools that have the opportunity to lock up returning players on multi-year rev-share deals should help maintain the roster and keep priority players out of the portal.
Well, these players have agents. Agents are constantly contacting GMs and receiving offers. No one needs to enter the portal first to set their price. Representatives are demanding pay increases for their clients regardless of performance. Backups and new players don’t come cheap anymore.
A common refrain when talking to GMs this month, especially those at top-25 programs: The public still doesn’t understand how expensive it is to maintain a roster.
Fans are disappointed that their team’s transfer portal class is not as star-studded as they need to recognize how much time, effort and money is being spent to fire up and keep players out of the portal in December and January. In fact, some schools were still making last-minute moves this week for players who had already re-signed.
Of the 18 programs that passed 50% Bud Elliott’s Blue-Chip Ratio For 2025, only five are going through this two-week period with limited scholarship departures: Texas A&M (11), Clemson (12), Georgia (14), Notre Dame (15) and Miami (eight so far).
High-attrition offseasons were expected at LSU, Penn State, Florida, Auburn and Michigan amid head coaching changes, and it makes sense for Florida State to lose 33 scholarship players after consecutive losing seasons.
But Ohio State, Alabama, Oregon, Texas, Oklahoma, USC and Tennessee all had more than 20 scholarship players enter the portal in January. Even programs that have serious resources must make tough decisions about which players they are willing to pay to keep and which players are asking too much.
High volume is now the norm
Remember when Deion Sanders brought in 50 transfers his first year at Colorado and everyone (including yours truly) questioned the strategy? The Buffaloes went into that 2023 season with an almost brand-new roster that included nine returning scholarship players and 68 scholarship newcomers.
Years later, it is safe to admit that Coach Prime was ahead of his time.
Some of the most extreme roster rebuilds you’ve ever seen are currently underway this offseason. Oklahoma State has 49 transfers, including 17 transfers from North Texas. Penn State imported 23 players and nine signees from Iowa State. The Cyclones need to make more than 40 transfers to make up for what they have lost. UCLA, South Florida, Memphis and Arkansas are all bringing more than 30 through the portal and LSU is about there, too. West Virginia is attempting the massive change for the second year running with 75 freshmen, including 27 through the portal.
But it is not just about them. This offseason has further normalized the trend of programs bringing in 20-25 transfers per offseason to rebuild or reload. According to SportsSource Analytics and Tracking Football, 39 FBS programs have received 20 or more transfers this offseason.
Athletic directors saw the astonishing success of Curt Cignetti at Indiana as proof that impossible levels of success could be unlocked very quickly by the right personnel. now we are going to see eden fisher, D’Angelo Pond, eliza surratt And his teammate James Madison moves the game to a national championship on Monday.
Interesting question going forward: Are Cignetti and the Hoosiers really the only exceptions in this game? Or is it possible that we’ll see at least one of these teams engage in a quick Year 1 rebuild, playing in the College Football Playoff in December?
There are a lot of people stuck in the portal
Entering the final day of the offseason transfer window, several agents told ESPN that their work is now finished as each of their clients has found schools. GMs and DPPs surveyed believed they still had some needs to be met by next week, but positions were filling rapidly.
Indiana and Miami players have a deadline of Jan. 24 to enter the transfer portal after the national title game. But beyond those players, portal activity should slow considerably in the coming days as schools approach their enrollment deadlines.
What does this mean for all the players who haven’t been in school?
Sources told ESPN that there were still more than 1,200 unsigned FBS scholarship players in the NCAA’s transfer portal database as of Thursday night. It’s possible that group includes some players who have verbally committed but have not yet officially signed.
Still, it’s a worrying number to see at this point in the process. That would mean more than a third of the FBS scholarship players in the portal have yet to find a new home.
In the 2024–25 portal cycle, more than 97% of scholarship players transferring to Power 4 programs matriculated to a new school. For players who are committed to continuing to play, there is no shortage of options at the FCS, Division II, D-III and junior college levels.
But this cycle presented new challenges. Schools had to quickly sort through the more than 6,500 Division I players who came to the portal since Jan. 2 and sign who they wanted as quickly as possible. If you were entering the portal with limited playing experience or were recovering from injury and only had practice film, good luck.
Another problem: because pre-portal tampering was so rampant during the season and especially in December, players who did not have agents or representatives for offers and visits before January were at a disadvantage. If you played by the rules and waited until January 2 to start your recruiting process, you were starting from behind.
Conversely, there are no doubt also players trapped in the portal who were cut out by their previous school or listened to bad advice from representatives who couldn’t deliver the expected dollars or destination.
So where will these unsigned players go now? The challenge is to decide whether to sign with a Group of 5/FCS/D-II program now or sit out the semester and hope better options arise in April. Eliminating the spring transfer window could help their chances, as these programs will still have injuries and depth concerns they need to address after spring practice.
After two tough weeks that felt more like speed dating than recruiting GMs and agents, there are still good college football players waiting to be picked. There are going to be some serious thefts at some shows in the coming weeks.
