Knights, Gators and Seminoles ready for unpredictable NCAA spring transfer window

For UCF coach Gus Malzahn, December’s NCAA transfer portal was a learning experience.

The Knights landed 10 additions during the first window. The number was the same for the Florida Gators, too. At Florida State, Mike Norvell added nine transfers ahead of the spring.

As spring practice comes to a close across the country, college coaches and athletes alike are preparing for a second wave in the portal, which opens today.

“More than anything, everybody learned a lot the last time it was open,” Malzahn said. “We’re hopeful things will be good. We’re in a really good spot as a team.

“But in the new age of college football, you’ve got to be ready to adapt.”

Ever since the portal launched in 2018, it’s become regular for thousands of college football players across the country to leave their schools and head elsewhere year in and year out.

That movement only increased when the NCAA introduced the one-time free transfer rule in 2021, which allows athletes to transfer to another school and become immediately eligible without having to sit out a season.

UCF coach Gus Malzahn expressed confidence about retaining top players but knows anything can happen once the spring transfer portal window opens. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

In an attempt to limit confusion around scholarship numbers for schools and streamline the transfer process for athletes, the NCAA recently adopted “notification-of-transfer windows.”

Basically, athletes still can transfer when they choose — as long as they can be admitted to their next school and meet academic enrollment dates — but they must enter their names in the portal during a certain time.

Previously, they could enter the portal whenever they wanted but that changed in August. The first window, which lasted 45 days, opened Dec. 5 and closed Jan. 18.

There were 1,285 FBS players who entered the portal in that stretch, according to The Athletic.

Now for the first time, a second window opens today and runs through April 30.

It’s unclear how active the state of Florida will be in the spring portal compared with the winter window. While the Gators, Seminoles and Knights will look to address remaining positional needs such as linebacker or offensive line, additions could first depend on the number of losses.

That’s because schools are no longer limited to signing just 25 scholarship athletes per recruiting cycle. So long as teams stay under the 85 total scholarship limit, they are free to add as many transfers on scholarships as they want.

For example, if one team has 83 scholarship athletes and is only planning on adding two more transfers, that could change dramatically if six scholarship athletes decide to enter the portal in the next 15 days.

[ UCF recruiting: Armwood receiver Kason Stokes verbally commits to Knights ]

Malzahn has expressed confidence about retaining key players at UCF but knows anything can happen today.

“You try to keep your top players,” he said. “Every coach in America is doing that. We’ll see what happens. I feel really good about our atmosphere. We’ve got a really good foundation built. I feel as good as I can right now getting ready for that period to come up.”

If using the portal correctly, teams could add quality experience that they might not have otherwise. For a program’s recruiting staff, that means watching film and scouting athletes who could be a fit.

“There were days in December when we were up here — even while the coaching staff was on the road — the recruiting staff was in the office until about 10:30 at night,” said Andrew Blaylock, UCF’s special assistant to the head coach. “Just making sure that we had the cut-ups ready the next day to either push to our coaches while they’re on the road on their iPads, or for coach Malzahn to come in the morning before he went out and flew somewhere for him to watch.

“We would probably get two hours to watch with him in the morning before he would leave and we would be back at it doing the same thing the next day.”

If that sounds overwhelming for the coaching staff, imagine being on the other side of the portal. It’s likely that an experienced player leaving a Power Five program will hear from dozens of schools nationwide.

Such was the case for Ohio State linebacker Teradja Mitchell. Before he transferred to Billy Napier’s program in Gainesville, Mitchell had to sift through tons of messages and determine where he fit best.

Ohio State linebacker Teradja Mitchell transferred to Florida after receiving tons of interest in the transfer portal ahead of the spring semester. (Jay LaPrete/AP)

“He had something ridiculous like 1,000 direct messages on Twitter the day he went in the portal,” Florida inside linebackers coach Jay Bateman said.

Mitchell took a redshirt last season but made appearances in 12 games with eight starts during the 2021 season. Selected as a team co-captain that year, he finished with the seventh-most tackles (45) for the Buckeyes.

“We kind of looked at a bunch of guys and felt strongest about him,” Bateman said. “I had a relationship with him from high school and his high school coach. When he came in the portal, we were able to kind of jump ahead of some teams.”

It’s bound to once again be a mad dash when the spring window opens this weekend.

“After going through what December was like, we’re more prepared than we can be,” Blaylock said. “You’ll never know the volume that will happen in one day.”

Email Jason Beede at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter at @therealBeede. The Sentinel’s Matt Murschel contributed to this report.