Wake Forest defensive lineman Jalen Swindell entering transfer portal

Wake Forest is losing part of their projected defensive line to the transfer portal. On Thursday, On3’s Matt Zenitz reported defensive lineman Jalen Swindell is leaving the Demon Deacons.

“Wake Forest freshman defensive lineman Jalen Swindell, a Class of 2022 three-star recruit, has entered the transfer portal, @On3sports has learned,” tweeted Zenitz.

A former three-star recruit in the class of 2022, Swindell was the No. 130 defensive lineman, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average. Additionally, the former Wake Forest defensive lineman played his high school football at Zebulon B. Vance in Charlotte, North Carolina. Swindell was the No. 28 recruit in North Carolina, and the No. 1176 overall recruit nationally.

Evidently, Wake Forest wasn’t a good fit for Jalen Swindell. Now, the former three-star recruit will be looking to play his football elsewhere.

More on Jalen Swindell, transfer portal

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.