How Many College Football Players Are in the Transfer Portal?

The transfer portal is all-consuming. Ever since the new portal window opened for transfer student-athletes in early December, it’s all anyone can talk about.

That’s because the transfer portal is both a gift and a curse. It’s rapidly reshaping NCAAF odds markets and fan relationships with their teams. But it also creates an immediate pathway for your favorite team to land top players in the transfer portal.

And after the portal opening, there is an unprecedented number of players hitting the road. 

How Many College Football Players Are in the Transfer Portal?

The transfer portal opened to student-athletes on Monday, Dec. 5. By the evening of Dec. 8, there were already 1,328 players in the transfer portal, with more than 850 entering from an FBS team.

College Football Players in the Transfer Portal

For those following the evolution of the transfer portal, that may seem like a small number. After all, thousands of FBS college football players had entered the portal in the previous cycle.

However, it’s worth remembering that the previous cycle lasted an entire year; this new crop of players entered the portal in less than 96 hours. 

Hundreds more players may enter the portal in the coming weeks. The current NCAA transfer portal window will remain open until Jan. 18, 2023. 

College Football Transfer Portal Updates

The transfer portal, NIL and many other modern updates to college sports are natural outgrowths of the larger age of player empowerment.

In short, all this turmoil and mobility isn’t just some fad. The transfer portal is here to stay. 

How Deion Sanders shopping in the transfer portal pic.twitter.com/r5Q72TbZg8

— Josiah Johnson (@KingJosiah54) December 6, 2022

Smart programs will realize this is a modern version of recruiting. In some ways, it’s a more reliable measure than recruiting – coaches don’t have to guess if a high school player is going to be good at the college level with transfer players. They’ve likely already seen a transfer player succeed at a previous destination.

That means college football odds bettors will need to adjust, too. Keeping up-to-date on incoming or outgoing players is just another part of being a modern college football fan.