Tennessee pitcher Hollis Fanning enters transfer portal

Tennessee pitcher Hollis Fanning has entered the transfer portal, On3’s Jamie Shaw confirmed Monday afternoon.

Fanning had a limited role for the Vols this past season but was excellent when given opportunities, finishing with a 1.26 ERA in 14 1/3 innings. He struck out an impressive 24 batters, despite tossing less than 15 innings.

The Tennessee native helped the Vols reached the College World Series this season, collecting two outs in a regional win over Charlotte. Fanning also made an appearance at the College World Series against LSU.

Fanning allowed only two earned runs all season for Tennessee, as the Vols were 13-2 in the 15 games he appeared in.

As a team, Tennessee went 44-22 in 2023, including going on an impressive postseason run. After earning the No. 2 seed in the Clemson Regional, Tennessee upset the Tigers in the winners bracket game, before going on to win the regional.

The Vols then went to Southern Miss and won two out of three in the super regional round to advance to Omaha and the College World Series. Tennessee stuck around in Omaha for a bit, before falling to LSU in an elimination game.

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.