Former top recruit for Miami enters NCAA Transfer Portal

Miami wide receiver Jeremiah Payton has officially entered the transfer portal after being removed from the roster in August. 

Miami head coach Manny Diaz has said that the wideout is taking a leave of absence for personal reasons.

Payton was Miami’s top recruit in the 2019 class, a former four star from outside of Jacksonville in Neptune Beach. He is 6-foot-1, 195 pounds and has played in five games for the Hurricanes, notching six receptions for 58 yards. 

Miami is off to a disappointing start after getting blown out by Alabama 44-13 to open the season, barely beating Appalachian State, and losing to Michigan State 38-17 last weekend.

While the talent is not translating into wins, the Hurricanes have a loaded wide receiver room with Oklahoma transfer Charleston Rambo, Key’Shawn Smith and Mike Harley.

Rambo leads the team with 24 catches for 242 yards and two touchdowns this season.

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. 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.