Illinois wide receiver, former four-star recruit enters transfer portal

Illinois wide receiver Marquez Beason entered the transfer portal Thursday, a source confirmed to On3’s Matt Zenitz.

Beason, a former four-star recruit, was the 18th-ranked player in Texas in 2019, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

A former cornerback out of Duncanville, Texas, Beason made the switch to wide receiver this year for Illinois. Beason didn’t play at all this season, but played in three games last year. He had seven total tackles in those three appearances, including four tackles in Illinois’ Week 7 loss to Northwestern.

Beason held offers from Georgia, Texas and Texas A&M, among others, but ultimately chose Illinois and Lovie Smith. He dealt with some injuries, though, including a torn ACL as a freshman. Prior to this season, he injured his hamstring, which caused him to miss the first few weeks.

Beason was one of two Illinois players to move to wide receiver this year, along with Isaiah Williams. Williams, who was a solid quarterback prospect, has handled the transition well, leading the Illini with 41.3 receiving yards per game.

Illinois is 3-6 so far under first-year coach Bret Bielema. It’s been a rollercoaster season for the Illini, who lost to Rutgers one week after stunning then-No. 7 Penn State on the road. They have three games left, starting with Minnesota this week before another bye week.

Kickoff for that game is Nov. 7 at noon ET on ESPN2.

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.