Oregon WR Dont'e Thornton enters transfer portal

Oregon wide receiver Dont’e Thornton Jr. of Baltimore (MD) announced that he would be entering the transfer portal Monday night.

The 6-foot-5, 205 pounder sent a message to On3 regarding his entrance into the portal:

First off I want to start by saying thank you to Coach Lanning, Coach Adams and the entire University of Oregon coaching staff and family for all the love and support they have provided me over this past football season at Oregon.

I also would like to thank each and every one of my teammates for always pushing me to be the best version of myself on and off of the field.

Truly after countless hours of thinking while serious discussions with my family about this, I would like to announce that I am entering the transfer portal . I’ll always be a duck at heart but it’s time for me to move on to the next chapter of my football career and make sure that I make the right decision for myself.

With much love, 

Donte Thornton 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. 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.