USC DL Stanley Ta'ufo'ou enters the NCAA Transfer Portal

USC defensive lineman Stanley Ta’ufo’ou has entered the NCAA Transfer Portal, On3 has learned. Ta’ufo’ou has spent all five seasons of his collegiate career with the Trojans.

This past season, Ta’ufo’ou appeared in 12 games. He recorded nine tackles, 0.5 tackles for loss and one fumble recovery, which was ultimately a scoop and score. After using his redshirt his freshman season, Ta’ufo’ou amassed 55 total tackles in his career.

Stanley Ta’ufo’ou played high school football at Grace Brethren (CA), where he was a three-star prospect. He was the No. 753 overall recruit in the 2019 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

He is the 22nd USC player to enter the transfer portal during or since the 2023 campaign. The Trojans have added 11 players in the transfer portal to soften the blow of their losses. USC currently sits at No. 31 in On3’s Transfer Portal Team Rankings.

Lincoln Riley addresses transfer portal spring window

This past week, USC head coach Lincoln Riley addressed the frustrations of the transfer portal, particularly the spring window.

“I don’t know that we’ve had it long enough for me to say,” Lincoln Riley said. “I mean, what you don’t love is you go through spring ball and invest in some of these reps in people and then they don’t play for you in the Fall. I don’t love that piece of it, although that’s not going to be a huge part of your roster. There’s always going to be a couple outliers.”

Riley believes it’s most important to find players that love the program and want to succeed for the name across their chest.

“We got a lot of dudes on this team right now that love SC, that love this team, that are as completely committed as they possibly could be and we’re not going to let the actions of a few sour us or deject us in any way. It’s part of it. If we lose a couple of guys then we’ll replace them. But the large amount of this team feels that way,” Riley said.

“I don’t know my personal feelings. Probably like anything, there’s some positives and negatives to both but it’s something that it’s part of the rules right now. It’s just something that we’ve got to deal with.”