With August 1 marking the annual reset of the college football transfer portal as we roll over into another cycle of player eligibility, the growth that the transfer portal has seen is evident but the numbers released today are genuinely staggering.
According to 247Sports’ Chris Hummer, from 2021-22 the transfer portal played host to 3,085 FBS players, an increase of almost 500 athletes from just a season ago and a massive uptick from the 1,717 who entered the portal during the 2018-19 cycle.
Furthermore, as our National Football Analyst Mike Farrell reported, 2,022 of those 3,085 to have entered the portal were scholarship players. As just 80 would opt to withdraw from the portal and return, over 1,943 scholarship athletes would take their chances in the portal but with just 1,500 finding new homes over 440 still remain in search of a program.
With just 130 team’s FBS eligible for this past cycle which will be joined by James Madison as the 131st program in this upcoming transfer portal cycle, that doesn’t leave much room for every transfer to find a destination. And unfortunately, as the transfer portal has continued to grow, it’s left more players than ever without a team begging the question of how risky transferring actually is for the student-athletes.
Nevertheless, the 2022-23 transfer portal cycle was kicked off this morning with its first scholarship addition following the entry of sophomore linebacker Sebastian Sagar, a 3-star from Rhode Island who was recruited by the likes of Georgia Tech, Miami, and Virginia Tech out of high school.
