CFB transfer portal live updates (2024)

The transfer portal has become college football's own free agency. The Athletic will keep you up to date on all the news around the transfer portal.

(Photo: Getty Images)

Arkansas lands Maryland transfer defensive lineman Tank Booker.

Nice win here for the Hogs. Big 6-foot-4, 320-pound veteran with two seasons of eligibility.

North Texas TE Var’Keyes Gumms announces he’ll enter the portal in May.

All-CUSA selection and Freshman All-American who had 458 receiving yards and 5 TDs last season.

Kaleb Smith made this kind of stay-or-go decision before, it’s just that the last time he paid for the privilege.

Six years ago, Smith was a high school baseball prospect whose season-ending shoulder injury altered everything about the football steps that would take him to college. As a junior at Patrick Henry High School, Smith knew the shoulder injury suffered in baseball that spring meant there would be no senior football season that fall.

Read more here.

Houston offensive lineman Cam’Ron Johnson has entered the transfer portal as a grad transfer, a source confirmed to The Athletic.

Johnson was a first-team All-AAC pick last season and took 905 snaps for the Cougars, all at left guard. Houston entered spring with its top seven offensive linemen returning before this move.

LSU has landed Maryland transfer offensive lineman Mason Lunsford, a source confirmed to The Athletic.

He played mainly guard at Maryland and adds depth on the interior, which LSU clearly has been looking for all offseason.

Not so long ago, Michigan was stuck on the wrong side of the transfer portal turnstile.

The Wolverines had 18 scholarship players or contributing walk-ons who entered the portal between August 2020 and July 2021. Outside of a few timely graduate transfers like Olu Oluwatimi and Mike Danna, Michigan wasn’t adding significantly from the portal to offset the attrition.

Read more here.

Evaluators of college football talent often point to a player’s junior season in high school as a true gauge of potential. That time frame typically is when prospects gain the most attention with scholarship offers from schools, if not sooner, in the quest to fill out future recruiting classes.

Joe Huber was not one of those players. He didn’t even make the varsity football team that season. Instead, he was a 6-foot-2, 190-pound junior-varsity defensive lineman whose best sport at Jerome High School in Dublin, Ohio, was wrestling.

By the time he reached his senior season, he was a two-way varsity player — on the offensive line for the first time in his career in addition to the D-line — and grew to 6-4 and 220 pounds. Although Huber earned first-team all-conference and third-team all-state on offense, his measurables didn’t exactly scream major FBS prospect.

Read more here.

Iowa added its first defensive player through the transfer portal with former Virginia linebacker Nick Jackson giving his pledge Wednesday night. Here’s what you need to know:

Jackson chose Iowa over Oklahoma.

The two-time second-team All-ACC selection led the conference last year with 10.4 tackles per game and had 104 overall in the Cavaliers’ 10-game season.

In 2021, Jackson finished with an ACC-high 117 tackles. He had 13 tackles for loss and eight sacks in both years combined, including seven and five, respectively, last year.

Read more here.

Major Williams seemed on the verge of returning to the Power 5 ranks after a successful spring 2021 season at Iowa Central Community College.

The cornerback from Florida originally signed with Virginia as a three-star prospect in the Class of 2019. And, after a detour to junior college, he was once again in demand, ranked No. 25 among junior college recruits by 247Sports.

Read more here.

San Diego State starting right tackle Josh Simmons announced he will enter the transfer portal. The 6-foot-6, 305-pound Simmons started all 13 games as a redshirt freshman last year and was second on the team in snaps.

SDSU opens spring camp on Feb. 20. The timing is extremely surprising. Simmons, who skipped the first transfer window, is not a graduate transfer, meaning he can’t actually enter the portal until May 1, after spring camp.

When The Athletic broke the news Dec. 21 that Wisconsin quarterback Graham Mertz intended to transfer to Florida, the reaction bordered on scathing. That continued in our mailbag submissions last week:

Wow. The Gators must be desperate. Graham Mertz has been a flop since his first year. He cost Paul Chryst his job. — Mike B

Poor Gators fans. All the QBs in the portal and they take Mertz? He shouldn’t be in a Power 5 program. — Kyle G.

Read more here.

Three Georgia players ended up at the same Big Ten school, at least partly the result of a long relationship between that school’s head coach and a Georgia assistant.

Another player was a package deal with his fiancee, another Georgia athlete who transferred. And a seemingly long-forgotten name from Georgia’s past resurfaced at a rival SEC school. But when you go down the rabbit hole of where former Georgia players have gone in the transfer portal, you get some surprising trips down memory lane.

Read more here.

(Photo: USA Today)

For college quarterbacks, transferring is now standard operating procedure.

If you’re not playing, you’re leaving. If you are playing and one thing goes wrong, like a season-ending injury or a coaching change, you’re probably leaving.

The Athletic studied the careers of the top 50 high school quarterbacks who signed with FBS programs in the recruiting classes of 2017 through 2020. More than 70 percent have transferred during their time in college.

Read more here.