Florida Gators quarterback enters NCAA Transfer Portal

The Florida Gators just took a hit to their depth in the quarterback room, as backup Carlos Del Rio-Wilson has decided to enter his name into the NCAA Transfer Portal, he told Corey Bender of Gators Online.

Del Rio-Wilson will be a redshirt freshman next season after he did not play last year in his first year in the Florida program. He is a former four-star recruit and a top 20 quarterback in the 2021 class, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average.

Simply put, Del Rio-Wilson has been buried on a deep depth chart during his time at Florida, which has led to his entrance in the transfer portal. Last season, he sat behind Emory Jones and Anthony Richardson. Now, Jones is gone but Richardson remains, and the Gators also added former Ohio State quarterback Jack Miller. Jalen Kitna is also on the depth chart at quarterback.

The top-rated quarterbacks still in the transfer portal without commitments are Justin Rogers, Jack Sears, Dematrius Davis, and Del Rio-Wilson’s former teammate Emory Jones. Now, Del Rio-Wilson is in the portal and looking for a new place to call home next season.

Transfer portal background information for Florida

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.