Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback enters transfer portal

Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback Blake Jarrett has entered the transfer portal, according to Rivals. Jarrett was a freshman walk-on for the Crimson Tide who transferred from fellow SEC school Vanderbilt a few months prior. Despite being on campus for a while and involved in the Alabama football program, the freshman walk-on did not see any action in their spring game. For Alabama’s spring game known as A-day, Jarrett was listed as one of the white team’s three quarterbacks, along with Jalen Milroe and Ty Simpson.

Jarrett made his way onto the Commodores roster the same way he did the Crimson Tides, as a walk-on. However, things should be different this time around for the San Diego, CA native. after spending some time with Nick Saban at his pro factory in Tuscaloosa, AL, other programs might take a flyer out on Jarrett and see if he retained anything in his time there.

Jarrett is just the latest in a string of Alabama quarterbacks to transfer out of the program this season. He joins Braxton Barker, son of legendary Crimson Tide quarterback Jay Barker from their 1992 national championship team. Also on that list is Stone Hollenbach, who transferred to Western Michigan in January, and former four-star recruit Paul Tyson.

Transfer portal background information 

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be  contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.