NCAA: Over 40% of FBS transfer portal entries did not land at new school

This offseason, the transfer portal stayed active as players looked for new homes. According to new data from the NCAA, not all of them found what they were looking for.

Only 54% of FBS transfers wound up enrolling at a new school, the NCAA said Monday. About 5% of portal entrants withdrew their names and 41% either stayed in, enrolled at a non-NCAA school or left their sport.

In its data, the NCAA broke down the figures even further. More than 2,500 players wound up transferring while 1,798 portal entrants remain “active” in the portal from August 2020-July 2021. One year prior, 1,583 players put their names into the portal, which shows how much more active things are getting. The data also found 59% of players who entered ended up on scholarship at their next school.

Additionally, the numbers show players entered the portal more in December and January than any other month. In 2020 and 2021, 1,605 players went into the portal in those two months, with 38% of the 2021 entrants coming in that time.

In fact, the NCAA found players are more likely to enter the portal at the end of the academic year or when their season wraps up. That makes sense since the FBS season ends in January after the national championship — or December if teams don’t make bowl games.

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.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August.