Rice's leading receiver entering transfer portal

Rice is losing one of their top playmakers to the transfer portal. According to On3’s Matt Zenitz, wide receiver Jake Bailey is moving on from the Owls.

“Rice wide receiver Jake Bailey has entered the transfer portal, @On3sports has learned,” tweeted Zenitz. “Bailey, a California native, led Rice with 56 catches for 714 yards last season and was an honorable mention All-Conference USA selection.”

As Zenitz mentions, Bailey was great for the Owls in 2021. Catching 56 passes for 714 yards, the former Rice wide receiver also added two touchdowns to his resume. He greatly improved upon his 2020 statistics, where he caught 23 passes for 276 yards and two touchdowns.

Moreover, Bailey was a three-star recruit coming out of St. John Bosco in Bellflower, California, according to On3 Consensus. Additionally, Bailey is the No. 12 overall athlete in the transfer portal, according to the On3 2022 College Football Transfer Portal Rankings for the athlete position.

Now, Jake Bailey is taking his talents elsewhere. Time will tell if bigger programs come calling after Bailey showed what he can do for the Rice Owls.

More on Jake Bailey, 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.