Freshman Auburn defensive back enters NCAA Transfer Portal

The Auburn Tigers just lost a talented and young piece of the secondary. According to On3’s Matt Zenitz, former On3 Consensus four-star safety Ahmari Harvey has entered the NCAA Transfer Portal.

Harvey, a Tallahassee, Florida native, originally chose Auburn over offers from Alabama, Georgia, Texas A&M, Miami, Florida, and many others in his original recruitment. He was an early enrollee at Auburn, as he arrived on campus in January.

Despite coming to Auburn as one of the top safeties in the 2021 class, Harvey did not play much of a role in his lone season with the Tigers. Now, Harvey has decided to play elsewhere by leaving Auburn and entering the portal.

Harvey tweeted a departing message to Auburn on Twitter after entering the portal.

“I want to thank Coach Harsin and his staff for everything they have done for me this past year,” Harvey said. “I really appreciate it. But after long consideration and discussions with my family I will be entering the transfer portal.”

Transfer portal background information for Auburn

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.