Buckeyes reserve safety Jaylen Johnson enters transfer portal
COLUMBUS — Ohio State reserve defensive back Jaylen Johnson has entered the NCAA transfer portal, Lettermen Row has learned.
He’ll have three years of eligibility remaining.
Johnson was a former four-star recruit from the Buckeyes 2021 class. He was one of three safeties the Buckeyes brought on board in the class, along with Jantzen Dunn and Andre Turrentine. Turrentine transferred to Tennessee after last season and Dunn is expected to have an impact in the Buckeyes secondary as soon as next fall.
A Cincinnati native and La Salle High School product, Johnson was one of the first players to commit to the Ohio State class of 2021. He joined the Buckeyes class on Jan. 7, 2020. But he struggled with injuries throughout his career at Ohio State, most notably tearing his ACL during spring practice in his first few practices on campus — his first spring with the Buckeyes.
Johnson finishes his Ohio State career with one total tackle.
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 in the transfer portal. It is not accessible to the public.
The process of entering the transfer 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.
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Once a player’s name shows up in the transfer 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.
