Ole Miss running back opts to enter transfer portal

Ole Miss running back Henry Parrish has entered the transfer portal, according to On3’s Matt Zenitz. The former four-star recruit played a key role in the Rebels’ offense in 2021. However, the addition of former five-star recruit Zach Evans through the transfer portal this offseason.

Henry Parrish played in 21 games over two seasons at Ole Miss, running for 814 yards and five touchdowns before opting to transfer. In 2021, he set career highs with 551 rushing yards and 173 receiving yards to help bring his career yardage over 1,000 yards.

Zenitz also named Miami as a potential destination for Parrish, who is native to south Florida and worked under new running back coach Kevin Smith while both were at Ole Miss.

The Ole Miss offense loses a large portion of its 2021 production with the departure of quarterback Matt Corral. They also lost versatile running back Jerrion Ealy, as well as leading wide receivers Dontario Drummond and Braylon Sanders. Lane Kiffin also loses offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, who he replaced with former Florida Atlantic assistant Charlie Weis Jr.

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.

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.