Highly touted Florida State freshman Sam McCall announces plan to enter transfer portal, deletes post

Highly touted Florida State freshman defensive back Sam McCall announced he plans to enter the transfer portal, but has since deleted the Instagram post.

Prior to deleting the post, Warchant captured a screenshot, featuring a letter from McCall to Florida State.

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FSU freshman DB Sam McCall announces he is entering the transfer portal. pic.twitter.com/PMl7duOMYT

— Warchant.com (@Warchant) November 7, 2022

“Dear FSU family, First, I would like to thank Florida State University for giving me the opportunity to be a part of their program and supporting me on my journey this past year,” wrote McCall. “With that being said, I would like to announce that I will not be a Florida State Seminole next season and will be entering the transfer portal.”

Afterwards, McCall added another post to his Instagram story, where he captioned the photo “It’s not official yet” with the prayer hands emoji.

Moreover, McCall was a four-star recruit and the highest-rated prospect in the Seminoles’ 2022 signing class, per the On3 Consensus. Throughout the season, he’s been seen mostly on special teams, recording one tackle in six games and returning eight kickoffs for an average of 17.75 yards.

Alas, it’s a huge decision for McCall, and it’s evident he’s going through the process of finalizing his feelings. Time will tell how his story at Florida State ends, but it’s a very real possibility that he’s on his way out of Tallahassee.

More on Sam McCall, Transfer Portal 

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.