Colorado QB Brendon Lewis enters transfer portal

Colorado QB Brendon Lewis has entered the NCAA transfer portal, On3 has learned.

Lewis opened the season as the Buffaloes’ starting QB after throwing for 1,540 yards with 10 touchdown passes last year as Colorado’s starter last season.

However, he hasn’t started since the Buffaloes’ first game, a 38-13 loss to TCU, and hasn’t played at all since Sept. 17. He had seemingly sunk to third on Colorado’s depth chart as two other QBs, Owen McCown and J.T. Shrout, both played during the Buffaloes’ 20-13 win over California on Saturday.

Either McCown or Shrout started at QB in each of Colorado’s last five games.

Lewis, a Texas native, was a three-star recruit who signed with the Buffaloes in 2020.

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.

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.