Oklahoma Sooners linebacker enters the transfer portal

Oklahoma Sooners linebacker Jamal Morris has entered the transfer portal according to Matt Zenitz of On3. A redshirt sophomore out of Houston, TX, Morris is a former four-star on the On3 Consensus.

Morris has played in 22 games over his three years in Norman, with 2019 being a redshirt year. The linebacker has recorded eight career tackles, with three of them occurring during the 2021 season.

Before getting on campus, most schools were recruiting Morris as a safety. Oklahoma spun him down to linebacker, where he will enter the transfer portal at the position. Schools such as Georgia, LSU, Michigan, and Texas extended offers during Morris’ high school days.

Oklahoma was always the school for Morris when being recruited, committing nearly a year before national signing day. He did not visit any other schools either. Now, he will be searching for a new home with a few years of eligibility remaining.

Transfer portal background information for Morris, Oklahoma Sooners

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.