Florida signs Houston linebacker transfer Mannie Nunnery

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Gators added a pair of transfers to their 2023 roster on Monday, signing Houston linebacker Mannie Nunnery along with Tulane running back Cameron Carroll.

Both will be late mid-year enrollees, giving the Gators a total of nine new transfers for the spring. Nunnery is the third addition at linebacker, joining Teradja Mitchell (Ohio State) and Deuce Spurlock (Michigan).

Mannie Nunnery appeared in 22 games for Houston over four seasons and has two years of eligibility remaining. After logging 34 combined tackles as a contributor in 2020 and 2021, he took on a bigger role this past fall and finished the season with 46 tackles.

Nunnery had a career-high 10 tackles against Rice and also logged eight tackles in Houston’s bowl game against Billy Napier’s former team, Louisiana. He will compete for playing time with Derek Wingo, Shemar James, Scooby Williams and the other newcomers at the position.

With the addition of Carroll and Nunnery, UF has landed nine transfers along with quarterback Graham Mertz (Wisconsin), offensive guard Micah Mazzccua (Baylor), defensive linemen Caleb Banks (Louisville) and Cam’Ron Jackson (Memphis), and linebackers Mitchell and Spurlock.

What Gators fans need to know about the 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.