San Diego State quarterback Lucas Johnson enters transfer portal

According to Matt Zenitz of On3, San Diego State Aztecs starting quarterback Lucas Johnson has entered the transfer portal. This will be his second time going through the transfer process, beginning his career with Georgia Tech.

Johnson played in all 13 games this season for San Diego State, throwing for 1,424 yards, 12 touchdowns, and four interceptions. He showed ability on the ground as well, rushing for 181 yards on 57 attempts and getting into the endzone twice. Against Utah, Johnson ran for 87 yards, a career high.

Originally from the San Diego area, Johnson decided to commit to Georgia Tech out of high school. He was a three-star prospect on the On3 Consensus and played in Atlanta when Paul Johnson was still the head coach. Air Force was another triple-option team to offer Johnson.

Transfer portal background information for Johnson, San Diego State Aztecs

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.