Auburn defender withdraws his name from transfer portal

Auburn defensive back Eric Reed, who entered the transfer portal earlier this week, has withdrawn his name, according to On3’s Matt Zenitz. The redshirt freshman played in just two total games for the Tigers over two seasons.

A 6-foot, 200-pound native of Shreveport, Louisiana, Reed – who attended Calvary Baptist Academy in high school – committed to Auburn over offers from Georgia, LSU, Notre Dame, Kentucky, TCU, West Virginia, Ole Miss and Colorado, among others.

A former On3 Consensus four-star recruit out of the Class of 2020, Eric Reed was rated as the ninth-best recruit coming out of the state of Louisiana before committing to Auburn.

Reed’s decision to return to Auburn for another season comes just three days after entering the transfer portal, but provides the Tigers with depth at a position where they anticipate losing multiple players the graduation and the NFL Draft this offseason.

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.

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.