Who are the most interesting college football transfer portal teams to watch?

The spring transfer portal window opens next week. There are plenty of compelling personnel situations across the country, so let’s take a look at the most interesting programs to watch over the next month. ACC Bill Belichick was hired after the early signing period, so he’s in the midst of his first recruiting cycle.

The Tar Heels were active in the winter portal window, signing 19 transfers. Several arrived from Washington, where Belichick’s son, Steve, served as a defensive coordinator last season before joining his father in Chapel Hill. Advertisement Belichick is one of the most fascinating coaching hires in recent memory.



There’s still a lot to learn about how he’ll approach the job. We’ll get a better glimpse of his vision and the type of players North Carolina covets by who else the Tar Heels add in the portal and the high school commitments they land this spring and summer. The Cardinal are on this list mainly because they stand to lose some significant talent after general manager Andrew Luck fired coach Troy Taylor last month , allowing players to hop into the portal immediately.

Stanford’s roster isn’t going to wow anyone — the program has gone 3-9 in four consecutive seasons — but there are intriguing pieces. Edge rusher David Bailey, a former top-100 national recruit, entered the portal last week and committed to Texas Tech on Friday. Receiver Emmett Mosley V posted 525 yards and six touchdowns as a true freshman last fall and recently entered the portal as well.

The Cardinal are in a really difficult spot because their academic standards make it difficult for them to bring in a high volume of transfers to plug the holes. Fran Brown was expected to breathe some life into the program, and he certainly did that in Year 1. Syracuse won 10 games for just the third time this century and finished ranked in the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2018.

When Brown was hired, though, a lot was made about the dynamic he’d bring to the program on the recruiting trail. Brown made some noise early on, but his first full recruiting class ranked just 42nd nationally. Syracuse currently has a top-15 class in the 2026 cycle, but that’s mostly bolstered by the number of commitments (14).

Now that there’s some proof in the pudding, we’ll see if Brown can elevate the program’s recruiting. He navigated the portal well last offseason with strong transfer additions such as quarterback Kyle McCord, receiver Jackson Meeks and defensive lineman Fadil Diggs. Advertisement Syracuse wasn’t as active this year in the portal in the winter window.

The Orange are inexperienced at quarterback, so it will be worth watching if they pursue one in the spring. Big 12 The program’s been called a sleeping giant for so many years, and Kenny Dillingham has provided a major spark for the Sun Devils, who are coming off a Big 12 championship and a College Football Playoff trip. Now that Arizona State has experienced success and has a strong coach in place, what does it mean for the program from a roster-building perspective? Dillingham didn’t get Arizona State to this point with highly ranked recruiting classes (they have hovered around the mid-40s), and his best transfer class ranked 17th nationally.

The staff has made some shrewd evaluations over the past few offseasons, landing running back Cam Skattebo from Sacramento State and receiver Jordyn Tyson from Colorado, among others. Will Arizona State start to attract high-ranked players now that it has won at a high level? On the field, nearly everything the Buffaloes did the past two seasons revolved around Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter and quarterback Shedeur Sanders. Without those two stars, can Deion Sanders build a more balanced roster? The transfer portal has been Sanders’ main source for talent acquisition.

The Buffaloes weren’t as active in the winter window as they were the past years, but they added some more beef to the defensive line with Gavriel Lightfoot (Fresno State) and Jehiem Oatis (Alabama) and signed a talented quarterback in Kaidon Salter from Liberty. The recruiting class featured some promising young pieces like top-50 quarterback Julian Lewis and four-star offensive lineman Carde Smith. It will be interesting to see how active Sanders will be in the spring.

Advertisement The Red Raiders went all in during the winter portal cycle and have spent a lot of money this offseason. Will they double down on those efforts during the spring window? They are off to a nice start, securing a commitment from Bailey on Friday. Y’all thought we were done? Official.

David Bailey is a Red Raider. pic.twitter.

com/WsuVf74tS1 — Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) April 5, 2025 Scott Frost and Rich Rodriguez have returned to their former jobs, but those programs are much different than when they left them. Frost coached UCF when it was in the AAC. Rodriguez was West Virginia’s coach when there was this football league called the Big East.

Both schools are in the Big 12 and have been mired in a stretch of average football over the past few years. How will these coaches, who have had success with their respective programs, try to build their rosters when outside circumstances (conference realignment, NIL, transfer portal) have made their new-but-old jobs so different? Big Ten Last year was a massive success, and it would be irrational for anyone to expect the Hoosiers to sustain that level of winning. Can Curt Cignetti turn this into a consistent, solid program? Indiana has posted consecutive winning seasons just once (2019 and 2020) since the mid-1990s.

It’s hard to imagine the Hoosiers achieving that through traditional recruiting. Cignetti’s first full class ranked 47th nationally and Indiana has just one commit for 2026. The Hoosiers did top-notch work in the portal last offseason, and those efforts were a crucial factor in their CFP appearance.

Players took notice, and Indiana landed some high–profile transfers during the winter cycle — Cal quarterback Fernando Mendoza, Notre Dame offensive lineman Pat Coogan and Northern Illinois corner Amariyun Knighten. We’ll see if the Hoosiers can add more talent during the spring cycle. Advertisement The Trojans’ top-ranked 2026 recruiting class was bolstered last week by a commitment from top-150 defensive lineman Tomuhini Topui.

It’s always good to land a four-star D-lineman — it’s even better for USC when that prospect plays at Mater Dei, which was traditionally a USC pipeline program until that well dried up the past few years. Since general manager Chad Bowden’s arrival, the Trojans have been much more active in recruiting Southern California and have made it clear they are going to be more aggressive on the NIL front. USC hasn’t lived up to the recruiting expectations under Lincoln Riley.

Riley has never signed a top-five class as a head coach, and USC hasn’t landed a top-five class since the 2018 cycle. With a new, more aggressive mindset, can the Trojans finally get back to the upper echelon of the recruiting rankings? Can they keep this class together? USC also has work to do at some key spots in the spring portal window. The Trojans could look to add talent at offensive tackle, receiver and linebacker.

SEC The hiring of Jim Nagy as general manager came as a genuine surprise and is a really intriguing move. Nagy had previously served as the executive director of the Senior Bowl since 2018, so he has in-depth knowledge of talent across the country. Will that benefit Oklahoma when it comes to evaluations and talent acquisition, particularly through the transfer portal? There is considerable pressure on this coaching staff to turn things around — quickly.

Group of 5 Eddie George is the latest former high-profile NFL star to take over a Division I program. Like Sanders, George made the jump after coaching at the FCS level. He spent four seasons at Tennessee State and led the Tigers to a 9-4 record and an FCS playoff appearance last year — the program’s second playoff trip this century.

Advertisement George was hired in March — a few weeks after Scot Loeffler left Bowling Green to become the quarterbacks coach for the Philadelphia Eagles — so he hasn’t had time to really do much roster building. The Falcons lost several players to power-conference schools earlier this offseason. The spring portal window and the upcoming recruiting cycle will be critical for George as he tries to make over the roster and build the foundation for his program.

The Thundering Herd opted out of the Independence Bowl in December after more than 20 players transferred following coach Charles Huff’s move to Southern Miss. Marshall hired NC State defensive coordinator Tony Gibson to take over the program, and he was tasked with a difficult roster makeover. The Thundering Hurd announced 61 new players as part of their signing day festivities in February, including a whopping 47 transfers.

It’s unlikely that’ll be an every-year thing, but this sort of roster shakeup is always compelling. And Marshall could still add a few more transfers in the spring if there are holes to fill. The 2026 cycle will offer Gibson his first real chance to build the roster in a more traditional way.

Dan Mullen hasn’t coached since 2021, his final season at Florida. It’s not that long ago but so much has changed in the sport in those few years. NIL is more prevalent.

The transfer portal is more active, and expectations are a lot higher at UNLV after Barry Odom posted two successful seasons. Recruiting was never Mullen’s strong suit, though he was a good evaluator of talent, and his Mississippi State teams were strong in player development. Now he’s coaching at a point in time when you have to essentially re-recruit your roster every year.

The last three seasons offered Mullen the chance to see how other coaches have adapted to the changing landscape. It’ll be interesting to see what he’s learned and how it shapes his roster-building philosophies at UNLV. (Photos of Brent Venables, Deion Sanders: Justin Ford, Matthew Stockman / Getty Images).