Missouri defensive back Les "LJ" Hewitt announces plans to enter transfer portal

As the college football season is hitting its midway point, more and more players are announcing their plans to enter the transfer portal. Missouri defensive back Les “LJ” Hewitt announced his plans to enter the transfer portal on Wednesday evening, according to an announcement he made on his Twitter page.

He wrote: “First I want to [thank] all the coaches and staff at Mizzou. I have made the tough decision to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal. I will remain enrolled in classes throughout the remainder of the semester. My journey is just getting started and I look forward to pursuing a high-level academics and athletic career. I cannot thank Coach Pogue, and all the great staff at Mizzou for allowing me the opportunity to be a part of this program,” Hewitt wrote in his brief post on social media.

Hewitt spent last season at Holmes Community College in Mississippi and transferred to Mississippi Gulf Coast for his spring semester. He was originally listed as a class of 2023 prospect, but reclassified to the 2022 cycle. He chose Missouri over Iowa State and also received some interest from the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

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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.