Clemson cornerback to enter transfer portal

Clemson junior cornerback Fred Davis has announced that he plans to enter the transfer portal.

A former four-star recruit, Davis played in seven games this past season, making three starts. He tweeted that he will enter the transfer portal on Monday.

Davis missed the final six games of the 2022 Clemson season with an injury.

A Florida native, Davis was an immediate contributor for the Tigers after signing with Clemson in the class of 2020.

He played in 11 games as a true freshman in 2020, finishing with 13 tackles and two pass breakups.

As a sophomore in 2021, Davis had six tackles in nine games.

Davis had 13 tackles, one tackles for loss and two pass breakups this season, before missing the second half of the year with an injury.

Even before the injury, Davis had some struggles. He was benched after a poor performance against Wake Forest.

“I mean you watched the game last week. It was a pretty easy decision to make,” Swinney said of the decision to bench Davis at the time.

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.