West Virginia quarterback makes transfer decision

Former West Virginia quarterback Jarret Doege has found his new home, announcing Sunday morning that he’s transferring to Western Kentucky to play for the Hilltoppers in Conference USA. Doege joins a WKU team that was led by record-breaking quarterback Bailey Zappe and put up mind-boggling numbers this past season.

Excited to finish out my career at @WKUFootball! pic.twitter.com/brMsnnQfLQ

— Jarret Doege (@DoegeJarret) January 16, 2022

Doege, a former On3 Consensus three-star recruit out of the Class of 2017, put together a solid season for West Virginia in 2021 – throwing for 3,048 yards, 19 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. The 6-foot-2, 208-pound signal-caller tallied 6,453 yards, 40 touchdowns and 19 interceptions over three seasons in Morgantown. Doege entered the NCAA Transfer Portal on Dec. 31.

Prior to playing at West Virginia, Doege spent two seasons at Bowling Green in 2017 and 2018, throwing for 4,041 yards and 39 touchdowns compared to 15 interceptions.

A Lubbock, Texas native, Doege – who has 10,494 yards and 79 touchdowns as a college football quarterback – will be a sixth-year senior with the Hilltoppers in 2022. He joins a WKU team that went 9-5 overall and won the Boca Raton Bowl in 2021 while putting up 44.2 points and 536.2 yards per game.

Transfer portal background information

Check out the NCAA Transfer Portal Tracker.

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.