Auburn defensive lineman entering transfer portal

When Dre Butler joined Auburn, he was hoping to become a solid contributor for the Tigers. However, he hasn’t evolved into the impact player Auburn thought he would — or Butler thought he would have the chance to be.

According to On3’s Matt Zenitz, Butler has decided to take his talents elsehwhere.

“Auburn defensive lineman Dre Butler, a former four-star JUCO transfer, has entered the transfer portal, @On3sports has learned,” tweeted Zenitz.

After being highly recruited before Auburn, the Tigers were elated to land Butler. It was believed that the program landed another stud along their defensive line. Unfortunately, Butler could never find consistent playing time over his two seasons with the team.

In 2020, Butler ended his first season with Auburn with 14 tackles and one sack. In 2021, he hoped to see his role increase. It didn’t, as Butler only had six tackles and zero sacks on the year.

Dre Butler believes he has immense, untapped potential. While the defensive lineman didn’t see it happening for him at Auburn, perhaps a change of scenery will benefit Butler.

More on Dre Butler, NCAA Transfer Portal

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.