Alabama loses specialist Jack Martin to transfer portal

Alabama specialist Jack Martin announced on Monday morning that he is entering the transfer portal. For anyone who lands his services, the former transfer from Troy will have two years of eligibility left after spending the last one and a half seasons in Tuscaloosa.

“I would like to thank the University of Alabama for the opportunity they have given me,” Martin said in a tweet. “I will be graduating with my degree this December. With that being said, I have officially entered my name in the transfer portal as a graduate transfer with 2 years of eligibility remaining.”

Martin transferred with the hopes of landing some type of role as either a punter or kicker.

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He lost out to current starter James Burnip, but he’s still managed to appear in six games as both a kicker and kickoff specialist. He made his one and only field goal attempt, which was a 29-yarder against New Mexico State in 2021. He also kicked off 10 times while averaging 58.1 yards.

Prior to his arrival at Alabama, Martin handled kickoff and punting duties for the Trojans during his freshman year in 2019. According to the On3 Composite rankings for that cycle, he was a three-star prospect who ranked as the No. 2,743 player in the nation, the No. 22 kicker and No. 104 player from the state of Alabama.

With Martin now in the transfer portal, either kicker Will Reichard or walk-on Chase Allen will be Burnip’s backup at punter. Allen, who saw starting action as a kickoff specialist in 2020, will also be tasked with providing depth at kicker behind Reichard. Stay tuned for more updates.

More on Martin, Transfer Portal from On3

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.

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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.