Middle Tennessee defensive tackle Marley Cook sets visits to Miami, Ohio State

Since entering the transfer portal on Tuesday, Marley Cook has become one of the top names to watch on the defensive side of the ball.

A team captain at Middle Tennessee, he earned First-Team PFF All-C-USA honors last season. Now the defensive tackle is being pursued by some of the biggest brands in college football. Cook holds offers from Baylor, Louisville, Missouri, Miami, Ohio State and TCU, among others.

The redshirt junior tells On3 he has scheduled two visits in the coming weeks. The 6-foot-2, 298-pound defensive lineman will visit the Hurricanes on Dec. 8 before heading north to Columbus for a visit with the Buckeyes on Dec. 15.

Both schools are in the hunt to add talent on the defensive line. Miami flipped five-star Chicago (Ill) St. Ignatius defensive tackle Justin Scott from Ohio State on Thursday night. The Buckeyes have also lost defensive lineman and former four-star recruit Omari Abor, who announced Tuesday his plans to enter the transfer portal.

Marley Cook would give both programs experience on the line of scrimmage. With 66 career quarterback hurries, he has 11 sacks and 15 quarterback hits.

To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire. 

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.

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.