Former Mississippi State, Arizona State linebacker Rodney Groce enters transfer portal

Six months after he announced his transfer to Arizona State, linebacker Rodney Groce is on the move again. Having yet to suit up for the Sun Devils, Groce entered his name in the NCAA Transfer Portal on Sunday, On3’s Matt Zenitz reported.

Groce is a former three-star recruit who hails from Pleasant Grove, Alabama. He ranked as the No. 519 overall prospect and the 35th best linebacker in the 2020 class according to On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average. Despite this, he failed to make an impression in his first two years, appearing in just one game without recording any stats.

This prompted him to enter the portal, and on Dec. 6 he announced that he would join Arizona State. Apparently that didn’t work out the way he planned, and he is set to join his third school in as many years.

Transfer portal background information for Rodney Groce

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.

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.