TCU OL Noah Bolticoff, DL Landyn Watson enter NCAA Transfer Portal

TCU just lost some bodies up front. According to On3’s Matt Zenitz, Horned Frog defensive lineman Landyn Watson and offensive lineman Noah Bolticoff have both entered the Transfer Portal. Both players originally committed to TCU out of the 2021 class and spent the last two seasons with the program. Now, they’ll look elsewhere.

Bolticoff played high school football at Rose Hill (KS), where he was a three-star prospect in the class of 2021 according to the On3 Industry Rankings, a weighted average of the top recruiting services. He was also rated as the No. 776 overall player and the No. 3 player in the state of Kansas in that cycle.

Meanwhile, Watson played high school football at Hutto (TX), where he was also rated as a three-star prospect as well as the No. 450 overall player and the No. 68 player in the state of Texas for the ’21 class.

A tough pair of players to add to the tally of portal losses so far this spring for TCU.

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.