Transfer WR Malik Benson joins Oregon for 2025 football season

Malik Benson, who previously played at Alabama and Florida State, will suit up for Oregon for the 2025 football season as a wide receiver transfer.

Transfer wide receiver Malik Benson picks Oregon for the 2025 season. / Melina Myers-Imagn Images

Transfer wide receiver Malik Benson has committed to Oregon out of the portal for the 2025 college football season, the player announced.

Benson played last season at Florida State and suited up for Alabama and Hutchinson Community College before that.

This past season, the wide receiver appeared in all 12 games for the Seminoles, catching 25 passes for 311 yards and one touchdown, while logging a punt return and two rushing attempts.

Benson appeared in 14 games and started once during his one season with Alabama, finishing with 13 receptions for 162 yards.

The wideout had 2,152 receiving yards and caught 21 touchdowns during his two seasons at Hutchinson, ranking second in school history in TD receptions.

Benson chose Oregon over finalists Tennessee and Kansas State.

He was regarded as a Top 100 player in the 2025 football transfer portal cycle, according to an average of the national recruiting services.

Oregon finished the regular season as the only undefeated team in the FBS this season, and won the Big Ten championship in its first year in the conference.

But the Ducks were eliminated from the College Football Playoff after a 41-21 loss to Ohio State in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal game.

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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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