Former Alabama walk-on Brylan Lanier announces transfer to Indiana

Former Alabama walk-on cornerback Brylan Lanier, who entered the transfer portal after one season, announced his commitment to Indiana on Friday. The graphic posted on social media includes a picture of his son wearing his helmet as he appearances in a Hoosiers uniform.

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Brylan Lanier did not appear in game action for Alabama over his one season, but did earn the respect of the staff before entering the transfer portal and ultimately decided to leave. Director of sports performance and head strength coach David Ballou sent him a congratulatory message shortly after the announcement.

@IndianaFootball = Home .. 1000% committed!! No More Talking, Lets Work!! 🥷#GodSon pic.twitter.com/uSJEE0btG8

— Brylo “GodSon” Lanier (@BrylanLanier) May 13, 2022

“Congrats my man,” posted Ballou, who previously worked at Indiana before making the move to Alabama. “You will love Bloomington. Happy for you and the Hoosiers!”

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Despite walking on at Alabama, Lanier ranked as a three-star recruit and the No. 1,295 overall prospect in the 2021 On3 Consensus. The local product played high school football just a few minutes away from Tuscaloosa at Paul W. Bryant and ranked No. 53 in the state.

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.

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.