The college football transfer portal officially opened on Monday. More than 1,500 FBS scholarship holders – and a total of almost 2,000 FBS players – have already entered their names into the portal.

For comparison, the total number of FBS players who transferred in 2018-19, the first year of the portal era, was 1,561. Those were simpler times.

As we head into a big weekend of official transfer visits and teams begin to fill their commit lists, here are insights from the early days of portal madness.

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The teams are the hardest hit
Pass catchers in demand
QB’s | Trend to watch

Tracking subtraction

Four days into this wild first week of transfer activity, these programs brought the most grantees to the portal:

Performance 4

26: Arizona
24: Arkansas, Mississippi State
21: Kentucky
20: Purdue
19: Oklahoma, Texas A&M
18: Utah

It is notable that this list includes many SEC programs, at least early in the process. This isn’t just a matter of fluctuation at the bottom of the squad. Arkansas, Mississippi State and Kentucky are losing proven starters who are being heavily recruited by Power 4 contenders and other teams within their conference. There are likely multiple reasons for these moves, but it shows how closely everyone at this conference is scouting and shopping each other’s depth charts.

Group of 5

35: New Mexico
29: Charlotte
27: Marshall, Western Kentucky
25: Carolina Coast, Tulsa
22: Middle Tennessee, Sam Houston
20: Louisiana Tech, UAB

The theme here is easy to see: If your head coach has built up with transfers during this time and then gets fired or leaves, the transfers leave too. The rosters at New Mexico, Charlotte, Marshall, Tulsa and Sam Houston will be gutted as those programs transition to new regimes. Some of these players will have the opportunity to follow their coaches to their next destination. But if you’re the coach who comes in next, like Tim Albin at Charlotte, you’re starting a real roster crisis. For these jobs, the essential first step is to go into the portal to reconstruct the roster.

“They don’t create a program anymore,” Coastal Carolina coach Tim Beck told reporters Thursday. “This is not a program. Every year you just build a team. You try to find the best team you can field every year, and you know that team is going to get hit in free agency.”

Which squads suffered the most damage this week? Here are three that stand out:

Arizona: The first four days of the portal cycle took a significant toll on coach Brent Brennan’s Wildcats, particularly on defense. Since Monday, Arizona has seen the departures of linebacker Jacob Manu – a three-year starter – and a flurry of defensive backs between second-team All-Big 12 selection Tacario Davis, 2024 leading tackler Dalton Johnson and the perennial starters Treydan Stukes and Gunner Maldonado, both of whom missed this season due to injuries. Combined, the group of defensemen made more than 130 career starts and left the Wildcats after going 4-8 in Brennan’s first season.

Oklahoma: The Sooners face what will be a crucial fourth season for coach Brent Venables in the fall with a major offensive rebuild. Former five-star quarterback Jackson Arnold officially landed in the portal earlier this week and a mass exodus of Oklahoma’s wide receivers quickly followed. The team lost six receivers with the departures of Nic Anderson, Jalil Farooq, Andrel Anthony, Brenen Thompson, JJ Hester and Jaquaize Pettaway in Week 1. These receivers’ career stats: 245 receptions, 4,059 receiving yards and 26 touchdowns. The departure of tight end Bauer Sharp, who led the Sooners in receptions and receiving yards, represents another blow, and quarterback Brendan Zurbrugg, running backs Kalib Hicks and Emeka Megwa and offensive linemen Joshua Bates and Geirean Hatchett round out a total of 13 departures as of date from a unit that finished the regular season ranked 121st nationally in total offense (322.5 yards per game).

Arkansas: Coach Sam Pittman is in a similar situation and has a lot to improve on in this next portal cycle after the Razorbacks’ 6-6 season. Eight starters on their season-ending depth chart are currently available in the portal, including a trio of offensive linemen (Patrick Kutas, Joshua Braun and Addison Nichols), receiver Isaiah Sategna, tight end Luke Hasz, defensive end Nico Davillier and linebacker Brad Spence and safety TJ Metcalf. Pittman has admitted it’s a frustrating situation, but insists the turnover isn’t due to a lack of money. He’s optimistic Arkansas can win the battle for plenty of SEC talent to fill those spots, but it won’t come cheap.

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Pass catchers are in high demand

Fourteen of the top 50 players in ESPN’s transfer rankings are wide receivers – and that may be too few.

It’s a busy cycle for wide receiver talent, with numerous playmakers making themselves available and hoping to capitalize on high demand. Georgia Tech’s Eric Singleton Jr. is widely considered the best receiver on the market. He’s only in his second year, but is considered a playmaker with early-round draft pick potential if he makes the right move for 2025. Auburn, Ole Miss and Georgia are competing for his services.

However, if you were to ask several other HR departments which receiver they like best, you would probably get different answers. Dane Key (Kentucky), Barion Brown (Kentucky), Kevin Concepcion (NC State), Anderson (Oklahoma) and Duce Robinson (USC) are extremely talented playmakers. Mario Craver (Mississippi State), Nyziah Hunter (Cal) and Micah Hudson (Texas Tech) are young but promising prospects. There are also plenty of receivers at the Group of 5 level who will get a chance to step up this offseason, including Florida International’s Eric Rivers, East Carolina’s Chase Sowell and Miami (Ohio)’s Reggie Virgil.

We’re also seeing an unusually strong market for tight ends so far this cycle. This isn’t typically a deep position in the portal, but several pass-catchers that Power 4 teams covet have already emerged, and more than 90 FBS scholarship tight ends are currently in the portal. Evaluators consider Purdue’s Max Klare to be the best of the bunch, but Tanner Koziol (Ball State), Hasz (Arkansas), Sharp (Oklahoma) and Terrance Carter (Louisiana) are all heavily recruited and there are plenty more with starting experience and proven production.

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QB decisions arrive

A month ago, we previewed this transfer portal cycle and suggested that there would be no $3 million quarterbacks in this cycle, as one industry source put it. We haven’t seen a quarterback portal entry that’s particularly jaw-dropping yet. Most QBs considered potential Heisman contenders in 2025 are staying with their current teams.

Many personnel departments viewed Tulane’s Darian Mensah and Cal’s Fernando Mendoza as two of the best options if they became available, and both chose to transfer. Duke placed a high priority on Mensah, knowing it would cost starter Maalik Murphy. Mendoza entered the portal on Wednesday and should also have a relatively quick recruitment.

Conner Weigman (Houston), Thomas Castellanos (Florida State), Devon Dampier (Utah) and Walker Howard (Louisiana) found the right candidates and didn’t hesitate to get involved. A few more notable names may appear on the portal in the coming days, with Maryland starter Billy Edwards Jr. the latest to announce his transfer. But with 130 scholarship QBs already available, we generally know who is out there. Expect much more clarity about who is going where on the Sunday and Monday after the first weekend of official visits.

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Trend to watch

Here’s an issue that’s bothering coaches and administrators and one worth keeping an eye on as we move forward this offseason: repeat transfers.

Looking at the data for the first 1,500 FBS scholarship players to enter the transfer portal in this 2024-25 cycle, 31% are players who have already transferred during their college careers. Since the NCAA can no longer enforce its one-time transfer rule and allows unlimited transfers if players meet academic requirements, a high percentage is to be expected. In last year’s portal cycle, 25% were repeat transfers.

More worrying would be the trend of the number of players failing to graduate increasing significantly for the second or third time. Last year, these players accounted for 11% of the transfers in the cycle. In this cycle, nearly 18% are repeat offenders who did not earn their degree.

This is heading in a worrying direction and it’s hard to find a simple solution. The current squad rules make it easy for coaching staffs to drop their underperforming players. You are taking more risks than ever before when transferring. If those transfers don’t bring in the expected starting spot, playing time or money, they return to the portal and try again somewhere else. The downside of multiple moves is the loss of credit hours and progress toward a degree.

In this current cycle, there are more than 450 scholarship transfers that were previously in the portal. Most want to join the third team of their career, but some are now aiming for their fourth.

ESPN reporter Eli Lederman contributed to this story.