Penn State offensive lineman to enter transfer portal

Penn State offensive lineman Anthony Whigan has announced on Monday that he will be entering the NCAA transfer portal. Whigan has spent his last three seasons with the Nittany Lions but now plans to finish his collegiate career elsewhere. He started this season as Nittany Lions starter at left guard but later lost his position to Eric Wilson. He is currently ranked 150 in On3’s transfer rankings.

Whigan announced his decision to transfer via his personal Twitter account with this message.

“First and foremost, I want to thank God for allowing me the opportunities I have been granted thus far and those to come. These past three years have been some of the most memorable years of my life. Being able to have made lifelong friendships/connections and earn a degree from such a prestigious school like Penn State, I am forever grateful. I would like to thank the coaches, my teammates and the awesome fans here at Penn State. I’m blessed to have had the support from you guys as a Nittany Lion. With that being said I have decided to enter my name into the NCAA transfer portal as a graduate transfer with one year of eligibility left,” wrote Whigan.

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.