Clemson receiver entering transfer portal

Clemson has lost its third player to the transfer portal so far on Sunday as receiver EJ Williams has announced that he will be entering the portal.

Williams posted the news on social media Sunday evening.

The receiver has appeared in all 13 games this season, catching seven passes for 70 yards.

Williams got off to a fast start with the Tigers but was never able to live up to the expectations.

He had 24 receptions for 306 yards as a freshman in 2020, which ended up being his best season at Clemson. His best game of his career came as a freshman in the ACC title game against Notre Dame when he had four catches for 80 yards and a touchdown.

Williams battled injuries throughout the 2021 season to finish with nine catches for 66 yards.

A former high school teammate of Clemson star Justyn Ross, Williams started four games as a freshman in 2020 and two games last season.

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.