Former Northwestern, Clemson quarterback enters transfer portal

Northwestern quarterback Hunter Johnson is now in search of his third college at which to play quarterback, per Matt Zenitz of On3. He served as a captain for the Wildcats this year and completed 30 of his 43 pass attempts for 283 yards and three scores before entering the transfer portal.

The former-five star recruit started his college career at Clemson in 2017 before departing after his freshman season. He landed at Northwestern, sat out the 2018 season due to the old transfer rule, and spent the last three seasons in Evanston.

According to On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies, Johnson was the No. 1 quarterback and player out of Indiana in the class of 2017. Overall, was the No. 23 prospect nationally.

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.