Monitoring Texas' transfer recruiting and portal departures
Texas continues its pursuit of Arkansas safety transfer Jalen Catalon.
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Catalon visited Texas A&M yesterday and is expected to head to Purdue either late today or tomorrow before officially visiting Texas on Sunday.
Texas continues to monitor the portal for other safety prospects, one of which is Oklahoma State transfer Thomas Harper.
The Horns are also looking at a pair of safeties from G5 schools.
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Texas senior linebacker Ovie Oghufo officially entered the portal yesterday.
Oghufo joins offensive lineman Junior Angilau as a former starter who has decided to move on.
It’s important to note, neither move was unexpected by the Longhorns’ brass.
Angilau was a team leader but also understood the talent of the young players in the program, while Oghufo is taking advantage of an extra Covid year to head elsewhere to further his education.
Both players gave it their all for Texas and are considered great teammates.
Offensive tackle Christian Jones is faced with a similar dilemma. Jones could stay one more year because of the Covid ruling, or he could transfer, or he could declare for the NFL draft.
While players like Moro Ojomo and Anthony Cook could have also taken another year, they have already announced their intentions to play in post-season all-star games in preparation for the NFL draft.
NCAA 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. 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.
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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.
