Five-star edge rusher joins 2023 college football transfer portal spring class

Sav'ell Smalls is leaving Washington, putting an elite recruit on the college football transfer portal market in the 2023 spring window

A prominent five-star edge rusher is on the market suddenly as Sav'ell Smalls entered his name into the college football transfer portal.

That decision ends a three-year run at Washington, where the defensive end was a highly-touted local recruit out of Kennedy Catholic.

"Wherever I land you gon get everything out of me. Believe that," he said on Twitter.

💜 pic.twitter.com/lPnrDgg0ZW

— Sav’ell Smalls 🧬 (@SavvySmalls_9) April 18, 2023

In three seasons for the Huskies, the lineman played in 29 total games, racking up a combined 32 stops, one tackle for loss, and a fumble recovery.

Smalls joined fellow Kennedy Catholic and one-time Washington five-star hopeful, quarterback Sam Huard, who also transferred out of UW this offseason, joining his former high school coach, who is now offensive coordinator at Cal Poly.

College football spring transfer portal tracker: 2023 updates, news

College football transfer portal

The NCAA Transfer Portal is a private database that includes the names of student-athletes in every sport at the Division I, II, and III levels. The full list of names is not available to the public.

A player can enter their name into the transfer portal through their school's compliance office. Once a player gives written notification of their intent to transfer, the office puts the player's name into the database, and they officially become a transfer.

The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player's request and NCAA rules forbid anyone from refusing that request.

The database includes the player's name, contact information, info on whether the player was on scholarship, and if he is a graduate student.

Once a player's name appears in the transfer portal database, other schools are free to contact the player, who can change his mind at any point in the process and withdraw from the transfer portal.

Notably, once a player enters the portal, his school no longer has to honor the athletic scholarship it gave him. And if that player decides to leave the portal and return to his original school, the school doesn't have to give him another scholarship.

---

More college football from SI: Top 25 Rankings | Schedule | All Teams

Follow College Football HQ: Bookmark | Rankings | Picks