JJ Pegues leaves Auburn Tigers for SEC West rival

Former Auburn Tiger defensive lineman J.J. Pegues is returning to his home state of Mississippi. The former tight end turned interior defensive-lineman will jump ship from Auburn to join SEC West rival the Ole Miss Rebels. Pegues announced his decision late in the evening on Tuesday, with this post from his personal Twitter account. On3’s Matt Zenitz originally announced his entry into the transfer portal on Monday.

Pegues was originally signed on to Auburn as a tight end out of high school. The six-foot-three now-defensive tackle played tight end in high school at Oxford High, in Oxford, Miss. He was also a basketball letter and a top-10 prospect nationally at his position. As a true freshman for the Tigers, he played in 11 games and was used primarily on offense. That season, he had five rush attempts for 14 yards, the longest ran for 11 yards. Pegues also recorded seven receptions for 57 yards with a long of 16 yards.

This past season Pegues transitioned to the defensive side of the ball at Auburn, bulking up to 308 pounds. He finished the year with 17 total tackles, 12 solo, two tackles for loss in a forced fumble.

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.