Arkansas lands commitment from SEC transfer

Sam Pittman and the Arkansas Razorbacks picked up a huge addition to their secondary from the NCAA Transfer Portal on Sunday, as former Georgia safety Latavious Brini announced that he’ll be staying in the SEC as a member of the Razorbacks.

#WPS pic.twitter.com/cPEQ5vNidX

— Latavious Brini (@Brinilatavious) January 23, 2022

Two weeks ago, Brini announced he intended to enter the portal, and last week, he made it official that he’s on his way out of Athens.

“First off, I want to thank everybody who helped me get here,” started Brini in a social media announcement. “The memories I’ve created at UGA will never fade. I want to thank Coach Smart and the entire staff for the opportunity to accomplish my dreams.

“However, I am entering into the transfer portal and completing my last year of eligibility elsewhere.”

Brini, a 6-foot-2, 210-pound defensive back from Miami Gardens, Florida, is coming off his most productive year to date. He played in 13 games for Georgia in 2021, starting 11, and he finished with 38 total tackles and eight pass breakups, both career-high tallies. Brini finished his Georgia career with 50 total tackles (33 solo stops) and one interception.

Coming out of high school, Brini earned a four-star rating according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies, making him the No. 40 safety in the 2017 recruiting class and the No. 60 recruit in the state of Florida.

Transfer Portal Background

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.