Stanford Cardinal four-star defensive lineman to enter transfer portal

The Stanford Cardinal football program just lost a player to the transfer portal. 2019 recruit, four-star defensive lineman Joshua Pakola entered into the transfer portal on Wednesday, according to On3’s Matt Zenitz.

According to the On3 database, Pakola Was the 13th best edge rusher in his class, and the No.27 ranked player coming out of California. He has spent two seasons with the Cardinal but has seen almost no playing time since joining the team. Pakola is ranked No.130 in On3’s transfer rankings.

This is not the first time Pakola has entered into the transfer portal. After last year’s season, he elected to enter the transfer portal but ultimately withdrew his name and elected to attempt to stick it out with Stanford. Unfortunately for the Cardinal, it appears that Pakola has no interest in repeating his mistakes of the past, and is now looking for another school to call home.

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.