Duke defensive lineman announces transfer decision
Former Duke defensive lineman Gary Smith III entered the transfer portal on Dec. 2 and he announced his official destination on Twitter on Saturday night. He’s going to play for the UCLA Bruins. The 6-foot-2, 320-pound defensive tackle was rated as a three-star prospect in the 2020 recruiting class, according to the On3 Consensus Rankings.
The mammoth defensive tackle chose UCLA over offers from Virginia, TCU, Minnesota, and Virginia Tech.
Check out the picture he posted on Twitter.
In just nine games during the 2021-2022 season, Smith racked up 24 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, and one sack. The Shelbyville, Tennessee native also had one pass breakup this season for the Blue Devils. Now, he’ll play for the Bruins and head coach Chip Kelly.
Smith is the second Blue Devil player to make the jump to UCLA so far this off-season, joining receiver Jake Bobo, who committed on Dec. 14. Smith is also following former Duke quarterback coach and co-offensive coordinator Jeff Faris. Faris joined the Bruins as their new tight ends coach on Jan. 19.
Smith also joins former Harvard defensive lineman Jacob Sykes and former Washington edge defender Laiatu Latu as the other defensive line prospects in the Bruins’ 2022 transfer portal class.
For more updates on where all the different prospects in college football are heading this off-season, be sure to check the 2022 On3 Transfer Portal Wire.
More on the NCAA Transfer Portal
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.