Sooners Portal Offer: Dez Malone

Oklahoma’s work in the transfer portal has a lot of the same elements as many other schools. The line of scrimmage needs to be addressed and several offers have already happened. However, one position that seems to have taken some priority for the Sooners is at cornerback and their first offer to date went to San Diego State standout Dezjhon Malone.

Career Stats: 33 career games (23 starts). 89 tackles (67 solo), four tackles for loss, one sack, four interceptions, and 12 passes defended.

PFF Grade in 2023: 71.8

High: 88.0 – Idaho State

Low: 43.2 – UCLA

Eligibility Remaining: One year

Why he and Oklahoma Make Sense: There are few things that Brent Venables and his staff seem to enjoy more than a player with real positional flexibility. Malone fits into that mold after spending much of his early career at safety before moving to corner in 2022.

What’s on Tape: Malone is a corner that is comfortable playing a lot of off man coverage. He triggers quickly and one thing that surely attracted the Sooners is him being a solid tackler in space. He’s a guy that can do plenty and, again, has a lot of versatility to his game.

NCAA Transfer 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 begins. 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 short, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship.

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.

Track Transfer Portal Activity

While the NCAA transfer portal database is private, the On3 Network has streamlined the reporting process tracking player movement.

If you find yourself asking, ‘How can I track transfer portal activity?’ our well-established network of reporters and contacts across college athletics keeps you up to speed in several ways, from articles written about players as they enter and exit the transfer portal or find their new destination, to our social media channels, to the On3 Transfer Portal.

The transfer portal wire provides a real-time feed of player activity. That activity includes basic player profile information, transfer portal ranking and original On3 Consensus recruiting ranking, as well as NIL valuation.

The On3 Transfer Portal Instagram account and Twitter account are excellent resources to stay up to date with the latest moves.