Monitoring the Portal - Other Teams

Buffalo QB Kyle Vantrease and RB Dylan McDuffie are now in the portal.

Eastern QB Ben Bryant also in the portal.

This has me torn, part of me is happy to see other teams lose players, but at the same time am like… “Miami is next.” Hopefully no teams in the MAC are devastated by the transfer portal.

3 Likes

At current count Buffalo has seen 19 players jump in the portal outbound since October. That’s virtually 1/5 of their roster. Hard to pinpoint the complete cause - disappointment with the new coaching staff, desire to follow Liepold, lack of NIL opportunities, players trying to play up, players trying to play down, or Buffalo weather…you could probably do a masters thesis on the topic.

2 Likes

Akron’s Mumpfield heading to Pitt.

There are two more MAC players in the portal’s top 25, RB Jay Ducker from NIU and DB Devoni Reed from Central. Both are headed for P5 programs. None of the other 23 players on the list - including about 5 from the FCS - are headed to G5 teams.

It’s interesting and a bit sad how many of these kids do not land anywhere though…I wonder in some cases, the response represents a shift…where coaches are like…“player X, you are not on scholarship next year”…thus, some of kids are in the portal for these reasons…meaning they were told, no scholarship for you this coming year?

2 Likes

It sucks to lose good players, but it doesn’t mean we have to lie on our backs like a turtle and do nothing in this new landscape. In the new NIL world there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to nab a few solid players in the portal from FCS or other G5 programs.

1 Like

Good point. I think the portal has also become a cauldron that coaches can throw their mistakes into. Coaches are playing a high stakes card game where the object is to collect as many high face value cards as possible by discarding low face value cards. Lower face value cards are being discarded in the portal as higher face value cards become available. There is a limited market for the lower value cards.

The portal may eventually supplant high school recruiting for many upper level P5 programs. They may just kick back and let G5 and lower P5 programs take the risk on high schoolers and simply pluck the ones who are successful in their first or second year of G5 football away from those schools. Essentially, you may have to try out for P5 football by playing a year or two st G5.

2 Likes

Not portal news, but WMU QB Kaleb Eleby has declared for the draft.

That news with Eleby seems like insanity right

1 Like

I saw UC RB Jerome Ford did the same thing yesterday. We won’t need to find a way to stop him next September.

It’s magic beans for many of these kids. To this point, I was thinking about Kyle V from Buffalo and found my thoughts wandering to Zeb Nolan. Here’s a guy was a top HS talent and as such, went to a P5 program (Iowa State, but still). He played, but not much, and transferred to 1-AA Noth Dakota where he sat behind first round pick Lance but was on the team that won a national championship. He then played after Lance left and was solid but not great, so he graduated to be an assistant coach at South Carolina and by injuries, got recruited to play QB again where he was serviceable but no star. Why this ramble? Because he’s light years better than Kyle V. Unless he transfers down, it’s unlikely Kyle plays much again if he ends up on a P5 team. And I happen to like him as a QB so I think it’s sad to see kids like that (et all) get sucked into the dream machine (Err, I mean transfer portal). Sorry to write so much.

3 Likes

On point, Yellow. Def!

1 Like

Hilarious, yet part sad, part true!

So many these kids just disappear like in a bad Dr. Who episode…

I was speaking with someone very knowledgeable of college football, particularly recruiting. He said 66% of the kids in the D1 portal don’t end up at a D1 school. Many transfer down to FCS, D2, D3. Anyone heard of a stat like this?

2 Likes

Yes. It’s pretty common knowledge that a huge percentage of the portal kids don’t get placed. It’s discussed frequently on the ESPNU radio programs. Two of our quarterbacks who portaled went D2 - Jackson Williamson to Newberry and Michael Bonds to Northern State. I think Noah Werzensky went D3 at Hanover and Billy Bahl went D2, I think. It’s happening everywhere.

Go to @rivalsportal for updates. Pretty crazy numbers regarding how many have entered vs picked up this far. Most P5 schools now have a position in their recruiting dept dedicated to the portal.

1 Like

That’s the ok side of it (to me) because in that equation, everyone wins. Kid gets to play and lower division school gets a player way better than they might have expected. It’s the “give up a perfectly good situ in D1 for a crapshoot chance to play at a P5 with new 4 star recruits coming for your job every year I don’t get. Unless it’s a grad transfer who can take the risk as they have a year to play with.

Exactly…which should lead to some balancing out on this…once the word gets out the pastures are not that much greener…and may not even exists.

So many of these kids never get another D1 shot…why throw away a free education…I have no issue with the grad transfer scenario though.

3 Likes

Danny Godlevske is a great example of a kid who probably gained a high quality experience by going through the portal as a grad student. He started 10 games until he hurt his foot and was part of a team that won a major bowl game against Notre Dame.

Most of our guys who have dropped down have had very little impact on the teams they dropped down to. Only one of the two guys who went to SIU - Haggarty and Russell - is still in the Saluki program - Haggarty. I think Russell dropped on down to Central Missouri.

3 Likes