The 2022 college football season has sadly ended, with the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs bringing down the curtain by becoming back-to-back national champions. The fields will be empty for the next few months and the stadium doors will close. But you know what they say: When one door closes, another one opens.

Now, the college football transfer portal door is open. The portal is relatively new, starting in October 2018. No, your favorite players aren’t being sucked into some magical realm, so what exactly does happen in the process of entering the NCAA football transfer portal? 

What is the transfer portal in college football?

The NCAA football portal is an online database that allows student-athletes to submit applications that are processed and managed to help the players transfer between colleges.

Basically, a player would head into an office or maybe even send an email in this day and age, requesting their name be submitted to the database, which would alert other athletic programs that they are eager to transfer. Their school would then have a maximum of 48 hours to fulfill the request. From there, coaches and staff from other college football programs would see the list of eligible athletes and are allowed to reach out to them offering a tour of the campus or athletic scholarship.

In 2021, the NCAA adjusted the rules that let student-athletes move using the portal once so they don’t have to sit out a year after the transfer is complete. The switch made it much more enticing for players: Under 1,700 FBS athletes entered the portal in the 2019-20 cycle but that number drastically increased to 3,085 for 2021-22. 

Who is in the college football transfer portal?

The college football transfer portal is actually a private database. The records list the names and contact information of available athletes in Division I, II and III levels. However, the entire archive itself is not open to the public. That being said, many major moves are often released by the media. There are a variety of online sources that have a portal tracker and here is a list of notable names that have entered the 2023 college football transfer portal:

Think of the portal as how you view trades in the professional sporting world go down. Sometimes coaches, schools, teammates or the environment aren’t the right fit for an athlete. Just like an NFL player would get traded, it’s possible a collegiate player moves on to a team that is better for his career and one quick change can offer him the opportunity to better showcase his skills. For example, USC quarterback Caleb Williams, the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner, was a transfer from Oklahoma.

So, who are some other notable names that made a visit to the 2022 college football transfer portal? 

When is the college football transfer portal deadline?

Since the transfer portal exists in all of the major collegiate sports, there are different headlines. To make things easier, the NCAA divides them into seasons. The college football transfer portal deadline falls under the “fall sports” category. After the four teams selected for the CFP are announced, the portal opens and there is a 45-day window. There are accommodations made for athletes on the teams that advance to the CFP National Championship game, allotting them an extra 14 days starting the day following the big game. There is also a spring window that runs from May 1-15. 

There are a few exceptions to the transfer deadline. The first is for Division I graduate transfers. If an athlete is scheduled to graduate and wishes to continue playing as a postgraduate student, he is exempt from the deadline and can enter the portal at any time during the academic semester, with the only deadline being to submit his name before May 1. Secondly, a student can transfer if his school doesn’t fulfill his athletic aid, which is finances that cover his tuition, boarding and other necessities. The exemption also applies to athletes in any program that has a head coaching change.