Mississippi State defender transfers to in-state school
Mississippi State learned on Monday that one of their senior defenders would be transferring to another in-state school for his final college season. Defensive end Aaron Odom made the decision to play his last season with the Southern Miss Golden Eagles.
Mississippi State senior transfers
“Thankful for all of the other schools that reached out and offered me opportunities,” said Odom in an official statement Monday. “I for sure love my home state and I will be playing my last season with Southern Miss football!”
Odom, who was a redshirt senior this season, has one season of eligibility remaining. He is a former three star recruit according to the On3 Consensus rankings, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. Odom held offers from Alabama, Florida State, Tennessee and others before choosing Mississippi State in his original recruitment.
Odom played four seasons with the Bulldogs, appearing in 17 games over the previous two seasons. He departs from Mississippi State with 5.5 sacks and one forced fumble for his career.
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.
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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.