Transfer QB Michael Van Buren picks LSU for 2025 football season

Mississippi State quarterback Michael Van Buren announced he intends to transfer to LSU for the 2025 football season.

Transfer quarterback Michael Van Buren has announced he intends to play for LSU in the 2025 football season. / Caitie McMekin/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

College football transfer quarterback Michael Van Buren announced he intends to play for LSU in the 2025 football season out of the portal.

Van Buren passed for 1,886 yards and accounted for 16 total touchdowns this past season as the starting quarterback for Mississippi State.

He started eight games as a true freshman and completed 55 percent of his passes as the Bulldogs finished in last place in the SEC with a 0-8 conference mark and going 2-10 overall.

In the process, Van Buren passed for over 300 yards in two appearances, including a 306-yard performance with three touchdown passes in a 10-point loss against Georgia.

Van Buren was among the nearly two-dozen players to transfer out of Mississippi State after its winless conference campaign since the winter transfer window opened.

Van Buren will likely sit behind current starting quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, who announced his intention to return to LSU for the 2025 football season.

Van Buren has three years of NCAA eligibility remaining looking ahead to next season.

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How the college football transfer portal works

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.

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