Tennessee Volunteers kicker Daniel Bethel enters NCAA transfer portal

Tennessee Volunteers kicker Daniel Bethel has entered the NCAA transfer portal according to Matt Zentiz of On3. He would have been entering his second season with the program but will now be looking for a new home through the transfer portal.

Coming out of high school, Bethel ranked as the No. 13 kicker in the country according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting services. No other major college football programs extended an offer but Ole Miss and West Virginia expressed interest.

Chase McGrath served as the kicker for Tennessee last season, making 12 of 16 field-goal attempts. He is still on the roster and expected to keep his job for the 2022 season. Because of that, Bethel will be trying to find playing time elsewhere.

Transfer portal background information for Tennessee Volunteers, Bethel

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.