Lamar offensive lineman transfer Bless Harris flips from UCF to Florida State

Bless Harris, an offensive lineman transfer from Lamar who had been committed to UCF, has flipped his commitment to Florida State.

“Everybody knows I’ve been committed to Central Florida already, but being able to have another opportunity in the back and it being a Power Five who actually needs help and has needs and will probably be able to come in and play right away,” Harris said. “I actually just committed [to Florida State] today.

“It’s wonderful … a blessing. My family is going crazy right now.”

Harris, a former three-star prospect out of the 2018 class, entered the NCAA Transfer Portal back in September after playing in 15 total games over the 2019 and 2020 seasons at FCS program Lamar. He had committed to UCF in October but has ultimately decided to join the Seminoles’ program.

A 6-foot-5, 305-pound native of New Orleans, Harris is expected to enroll at Florida State for the start of the spring semester in January. He will have to years of eligibility remaining.

Transfer portal background information 

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be  contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.