Keep an eye on the NCAA’s Transfer Portal
The National Collegiate Athletic Association runs a web portal that currently features over 850 college football players looking for new schools. The NCAA portal has become increasingly attractive for West Virginia college players in the last few weeks. Fans of the Mountaineers and WV football in general, if they are interested in online sports betting, had better keep an eye on the NCAA portal as a good source of information. There are several now-former Mountaineers there, most of whom are looking for more playing time at a new school. New arrivals are another feature to be watched closely, and those too are featured in the NCAA portal.
(Rick Scuteri / Associated Press)
The peculiarity of the 2020 season not counting toward eligibility means that every player is getting a one-time transfer without penalty. This opportunity has turned the portal into a very busy place. The trend is expected to grow in the next few weeks. West Virginia has six remaining scholarships, and some sports commentators think they should not take high school recruits anymore and save those spots for transfers.
Neal Harmon Brown, the head football coach at West Virginia University, did just this during the early signing period in December. WVU did not accept commitments from high school or junior college prospects anymore. Brown used one of the available slots to recruit Virginia Tech offensive lineman Doug Nester when he announced his enrolment in the NCAA Transfer Portal. Nester is an extremely talented prospect who has already shown his ability to dominate at the Power Five level.
Coach Neal Brown saw the opportunity of a good deal for the Mountaineers. “We filled several of our needs. It was intentionally small,” Brown commented on the sixteen signees announced in December 2020. “We’re still recruiting a couple of high school prospects that we’ll sign in February, and we’ll be in the market for some four-year transfers as well.” Seven transfers have so far been added to the Mountaineers in Neal Brown’s first offseason: Jarret Doege, Austin Kendall, Sean Ryan, George Campbell, Reuben Jones, Alonzo Addae, and Josh Growden.
In the NCAA Transfer Portal there are currently nine players who were members of the West Virginia University program for at least part of the 2020 season. The NCAA did not count the ’20 campaign towards any fall student-athlete’s eligibility clock (or towards 2020-21 winter sports student-athletes either). So they now have one more season of college eligibility. Several of them are looking at the possibility of spending it at another school. The portal is very likely to get more members in the coming weeks for this very reason.
Offensive lineman Junior Uzebu announced in midseason that he was leaving West Virginia to transfer to Vanderbilt. Other players with a WVU scholarship in the transfer portal include redshirt freshman defensive back Tae Mayo, redshirt freshman defensive back Tacorey Turner, junior defensive lineman Quay Mays, and junior receiver Zack Dobson. More former Mountaineers searching for a new college team are senior receiver Keion Wakefield, senior running back Lorenzo Dorr, and redshirt sophomore quarterback Trent Jackson.
