Nebraska quarterback Adrian Martinez enters transfer portal

Scott Frost is planning to be back on the sidelines for Nebraska next year. His quarterback might not be there with him, though.

Dual-threat quarterback Adrian Martinez entered the transfer portal Thursday morning, On3’s Matt Zenitz confirmed.

Nebraska had a rough year this year, going 3-9 and losing eight of those nine games by one possession. But Martinez had a statistically good year — both in the air and on the ground.

Martinez ranks fourth in the Big Ten with 260.3 passing yards per game and 17th in the league with 47.73 rushing yards per contest. He missed Nebraska’s last regular season game against Iowa as he dealt with a shoulder injury.

In fact, Martinez’s best game came in his final game this season when he went 23 for 35 for 351 yards and a touchdown as Nebraska fell to Wisconsin 35-28 Nov. 20.

The Cornhuskers’ all-time leader in total offense, Martinez came to Lincoln as a four-star recruit out of California. He received interest from Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma before choosing Nebraska.

This year, Martinez accounted for 63.1% of Nebraska’s total offense. He threw for 2,863 yards in the air and ran for 525 yards on the ground.

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.