Former Ohio State quarterback Quinn Ewers enters transfer portal

Former Ohio State freshman quarterback informed the Buckeyes that he intended to enter the NCAA transfer portal on Friday night. Shortly after, he officially entered the portal, On3’s Matt Zenitz confirmed.

The freshman quarterback made news earlier this season after reclassifying from the 2022 class to 2021. And despite the reclassification, he was still considered the top quarterback in the class.

Ewers played high school football at South Lake Carroll, which is one of the top high school programs in the Dallas area. It is reported that Ewers is expected to consider Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Tech for his next destination. During his time at Ohio State, he made over a million dollars off of Name, Image and Likeness.

Next steps for Quinn Ewers

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.

Here is the list of the college football players who have used the portal this season.