Last week, Conference USA released its annual all-conference teams. If you scan through the list of honorees, you’ll find 17 players who have already entered the NCAA transfer portal.
Florida International wide receiver Kris Mitchell is heading to Notre Dame. His teammate, defensive lineman Jordan Guerad, is going to Minnesota. Louisiana Tech offensive lineman Carson Bruno will try to win a starting job at TCU. And UTEP guard Justin Mayers is coming to Colorado to help coach Deion Sanders fix his offensive line.
Every Group of 5 league is going through something similar. Toledo’s Dequan Finn, the MAC Player of the Year, is currently available in the portal. So is last year’s MAC Player of the Year, Ohio quarterback Kurtis Rourke. Grayson McCall, the three-time Sun Belt Player of the Year, committed to NC State on Wednesday. The AAC Defensive Player of the Year, UTSA outside linebacker Trey Moore, is one of the most coveted players on the market. And Arkansas just landed Boise State quarterback Taylen Green, last year’s Mountain West Freshman of the Year.
The G5 Talent Drain isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Nearly 600 scholarship players from Group of 5 programs have already put their name in the portal during this cycle. The portal inspires a bet-on-yourself spirit that’s hard to resist for players at mid-major schools who believe they belong on college football’s biggest stage.
And why wouldn’t they test their luck? Power 5 programs are signing more players away from the Group of 5 than ever before. In the 2021-22 transfer portal cycle, 123 G5 scholarship players were able to transfer up. Last year, the total nearly doubled, to 239. Although that represented only 21 percent of G5 scholarship transfers, the possibility is motivating for many more.
It’s easy to see how we got here if you understand the portal food chain. Power 5 programs looking to upgrade their rosters who aren’t eager to engage in pricey bidding wars can take a chance on Power 5 backups in the portal who have limited game tape. Or they can go get an experienced Group of 5 starter. Those players might not be as physically gifted, but at least there’s proof they can play.
And thanks to the rising popularity of the portal, more Power 5-caliber high school recruits are ending up on G5 rosters. When programs that once signed 25 high school players get more selective and sign 15 to 20 so they can save room for transfers, there’s a substantial impact. Then factor in the pandemic and the NCAA-mandated 15-month recruiting dead period in 2020 and ‘21. The consequence: hundreds of recruits slipping through the cracks of college football’s talent evaluation industry.
That has created an intriguing market opportunity for savvy Power 5 recruiting departments, especially those that don’t have as much collective money to throw around for acquisitions. If they’re willing to dig into the tape, they’re going to find guys on that All-CUSA list and throughout the G5 who can be starter-caliber contributors and may even have NFL potential.
In fact, six players who made G5-to-P5 transfers during their college careers have already accepted Senior Bowl invites this month: wide receivers Jacob Cowing (UTEP/Arizona), Jamari Thrash (Georgia State/Louisville) and Devontez Walker (Kent State/North Carolina), defensive lineman Braden Fiske (Western Michigan/Florida State) and cornerbacks Josh Newton (ULM/TCU) and Quincy Riley (Middle Tennessee/Louisville).
For Power 5 programs looking for a boost, mining the portal for these lesser-known gems is an intriguing opportunity. And for those in the Group of 5? It’s the frustrating cost of doing business in this evolving sport.
In his six years as UTEP’s head coach, Dana Dimel found a way to get players to El Paso. The program lost Cowing and offensive lineman Jeremiah Byers (Florida State) to big programs in recent years, but Dimel and his staff were able to hold things together and convince starters to stick around. A seven-win season in 2021 bought Dimel more time, but going 3-9 this fall brought an end to his tenure. And just like that, his best players were out the door.
By the time new UTEP head coach Scottie Walden landed the job, the Miners already had 21 scholarship players in the portal. Seven earned All-CUSA honors this season. That’s a serious reset, one that will probably force Walden to look to the portal to find replacements.
As these G5 transfers explore their options and take their visits over the next few weeks, there’s a tricky question they’d be wise to consider: Are they actually better off?
The Athletic studied 186 scholarship players who made G5-to-P5 transfers for the 2023 season. Specialists were excluded from the study, as were players who left BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF because those schools were moving to the Big 12.
There are several success stories among the players on that list. In fact, 49 of these transfers started 10 or more games at their new schools. Tez Johnson (Troy) and Evan Williams (Fresno State) became difference-makers for Oregon. Jaylen Key (UAB) has started 11 games at safety for Alabama. Jalen McLeod, an All-Portal Team pick from App State, and three more G5 transfers became starters for Auburn. The USF duo of Xavier Weaver and Jimmy Horn Jr. made a name for themselves as Shedeur Sanders’ go-to receivers at Colorado.
But the ones who made it tend to draw attention away from the many more who didn’t. Among these 186 transfers, 72 percent played fewer snaps for their new team, and 37 percent have not started a game this season.
A total of 104 of these transfers played 500-plus snaps for their former teams in 2022. How many were able to match or surpass that number on a Power 5 team this season? Only 13 of them.
This subset of transfer players logged a total of 95,637 snaps for Group of 5 teams during the 2022 season, according to Pro Football Focus data. This year? Their combined total snaps played is 60,345. The average among these 186 players was 190 fewer snaps.
Injuries are certainly a factor in those results, and they prevented some promising players from succeeding in 2023. Few transfers were more hyped in the spring than UTSA wide receiver Zakhari Franklin. The Roadrunners’ all-time leading receiver transferred to Ole Miss but missed his first three games due to injury and finished with just four catches for 38 yards for the Rebels.
Others weren’t able to break through and earn more significant roles. Sean Tyler rushed for 1,000 yards at Western Michigan last year but was the No. 3 back at Minnesota. Kent State’s Collin Schlee ended up being QB3 at UCLA. Former Georgia State defensive lineman Thomas Gore saw his snap count go from 610 down to 151 at Miami. Offensive lineman Victor Cutler Jr. tried to go from Louisiana-Monroe to Ohio State, played 21 snaps as a backup and is now back in the portal. He was one of 69 players in this group who logged zero starts in 2023.
For both sides, these December portal recruitments are essentially guessing games. Coaches are making decisions based on perceived needs, but sometimes a redshirt freshman or sophomore takes a big step forward in the winter and spring and surpasses the portal pickup. Players must decipher whether they’ll really get a chance to play or if they’re merely being brought in for depth.
For many G5-to-P5 transfers, the ability to make more NIL money is worth all the risk. From that standpoint, the grass certainly can be greener. But the majority of Group of 5 players currently going through this unpredictable recruiting process will soon learn that successful transfer moves are as much about luck and timing as talent.
The portal isn’t a golden ticket. It’s more like a scratch-off.
— This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
