Texas shortstop Mitchell Daly enters transfer portal
Texas Longhorns shortstop Mitchell Daly is in the NCAA transfer portal, Inside Texas has learned. Daly, a junior from Madison (Ala.) Bob Jones, played in 189 games and started 171 during his UT career.
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Daly started 59 games his freshman season in 2021 and was a key part of a Texas team that won the Big 12 and reached the final four of the College World Series. A steady second baseman in the field, Daly hit .316 and even held a .350 batting average deep into May. But from that mark his numbers dipped as the postseason progressed and his career went on.
During his second season in 2022, Daly struggled at the plate on a prolific offensive team. In 67 games with 59 starts, Daly hit .237.
He switched to shortstop for the 2023 season, but his issues at the plate continued. He hit just .231 but did have a late-season surge where he hit two clutch home runs in the postseason.
Daly ends his Texas career with 158 hits, 90 RBI, 13 home runs, and 16 stolen bases.
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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.
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.
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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.
