UCF Football Working The Transfer Portal Until the Last Moment

How the Transfer Portal truly works can be viewed and understood by how UCF Football operates.

Brian Smith | Jan 10, 2022

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ORLANDO - In 2021, few college football teams saw more success from the Transfer Portal than UCF. Now the Knights are attempting to replicate that success and then some.

While many of the players that hit the Transfer Portal are looking for a way to reach the NFL, there’s something that cannot be lost during this process. These are still schools of higher learning, and the players need to decide in a timely fashion to enroll for a particular school’s start of a spring, summer or fall semester. That’s where this whole transfer scenario becomes quite complex.

The only transfer that was announced during UCF’s National Signing Day event on Dec. 15 would be offensive tackle Tylan Grable, who originally played at Jacksonville State in Alabama.

Many of the players in the Transfer Portal simply were not ready to make a decision that early, and that’s where each school has to recruit differently based on the class schedule time table.

UCF starts classes today, which is Monday, Jan. 10. Even if a Transfer Portal player decides on Tuesday, the Knights can probably get him into school and get him started. UCF, however, does not start at the exact same time as all other programs.

Notre Dame, for instance, generally starts around Jan. 20 or the third week in January each year. That’s an advantage to work out all the credits that need to be transferred for an additional week, plus more time to court that prospect.

There are many other schools that start later in January or operate on a block schedule (Ohio State and Washington have done this and it really adjusts the time when players can enroll because they started later). Thus, programs that start later hold an advantage because it’s more time to recruit a player before needing a definitive answer.

So what can UCF or other schools do that start their semesters earlier? Hit the recruiting trail sooner. There’s simply no way around it. One cannot change the class schedule, and being on top something UCF has done extremely well.

The Knights hosted multiple Transfer Portal recruits this past weekend. The UCF coaching staff and administrative staff made a concerted effort to pitch why UCF was the place for them, and did so knowing the time table was not in their favor as compared to some other schools also recruiting those same players.

That's a great example of hard work paying off. The Knights have landed big-time players already, and are not satisfied with their Transfer Portal haul just yet.

There will be more Transfer Portal decisions this week. Hopefully UCF ends up landing a few of these players because it’s so important to have a balanced roster, which is something UCF Head Football Coach Gus Malzahn mentioned during the press conference on Jan. 9.

“The game has changed. I mean, the (Transfer) Portal has changed everything,” Coach Malzahn stated. “You know, you lose a few players, and roster management is so important. You gotta replace them. I’ve said this before, but I think this is such an attractive place for transfers. And now that it’s the new norm, you know, if we handle it right it could be a huge advantage for us.”

Coach Malzahn plans to have another press conference after all the Transfer Portal players that UCF will bring in for the spring semester are enrolled such as Terrence Lewis (LB, Maryland), K.D. McDaniel (OLB/DE, Kentucky), and John Rhys Plumlee (QB, Ole Miss).

Therefore, it should be within the next few weeks that he’s able to talk with the media once again and talk about the new additions to the UCF roster. The other option, he could wait until the second National Signing Day on Feb. 2 to include any additional high school recruits the Knights sign as well.

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