Alabama four-star defensive back enters the NCAA transfer portal

According to On3’s Matt Zenitz, Alabama has lost a defensive back to the transfer portal.

Cornerback Marcus Banks has entered the transfer portal.

Banks is a junior out of Houston, TX, and was a member of the Crimson Tide’s 2019 recruiting class. Over his two seasons in Tuscaloosa, he saw action in 15 games, mostly on special teams.

Whenever the cornerback did get to play on the defensive side of the ball, he recorded eight total tackles. Six have come during the 2021 season, where Banks also added an interceptions against Mercer.

Banks released a statement via Twitter on Monday night.

“Thank you to all of the coaches, staff, fans, and especially to all my brothers/teammates at The University of Alabama. With that being said I’ve officially entered my name in the NCCA Transfer portal with 2 years left of eligibility.”

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.