Illinois receiver, former Notre Dame running back enters transfer portal

An Illinois wide receiver entered the transfer portal Wednesday. Jafar Armstrong, who transferred from Notre Dame, went into the portal Wednesday night, according to On3’s Matt Zenitz.

Armstrong transferred to Illinois this past offseason after four years at Notre Dame, primarily as a running back. He switched positions to wide receiver this season and didn’t record a catch in three snaps.

In 31 games at Notre Dame, Armstrong ran for 513 yards on the ground and had 30 receptions for 294 yards in the air. His best season came in 2018 when he had 542 total yards and seven touchdowns to help the Fighting Irish to a College Football Playoff berth.

A former four-star recruit, Armstrong was the top recruit in the state of Kansas from the Class of 2017, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He held offers from Baylor, Illinois and Missouri in addition to Notre Dame.

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.