Alabama wide receiver, former four-star recruit enters transfer portal

Alabama wide receiver Xavier Williams hasn’t played this year due to medical issues. Friday, the redshirt sophomore entered the transfer portal, a source told On3’s Matt Zenitz.

Williams was a four-star recruit out of Hollywood, Florida from the Class of 2018, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He was the No. 29 overall recruit in the state of Florida.

He was ruled out for the season due to an unknown medical reason, and Alabama coach Nick Saban wouldn’t say what specifically was wrong back in August.

“’Ziggy’ also has some medical issues that’s keeping him out,” Saban said at the time. “He’s not going to play this year.”

Williams has played in 12 games in three years at Alabama, but didn’t have any receptions until 2020. In six games last year, Williams had three receptions for 24 yards.

He held offers from Georgia, Ohio State and Penn State, among other big-name schools, out of high school before choosing Alabama.

Alabama is getting ready to take on New Mexico State this week.

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.