Florida Gators LB Scooby Williams to enter transfer portal

On3 imageby:Keith Niebuhr•12/31/23•

On3Keith

Florida Gators linebacker Scooby Williams plans to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal, he told Hayes Fawcett of On3.

Williams, a native of Alabama, will have two years of eligibility remaining.

He recorded 52 tackles (27 solo) with one sack in 2023. That was his third season with the Gators (he played sparingly in 2021 and redshirted).

Williams was the No. 84 recruit nationally in the On3 Industry Rankings for the 2021 class, but never lived up to the hype in Gainesville. He finished his Gators career with 69 total tackles and one sack.

His departure may help pave the way for 2023 4-star signees Myles Graham and Aaron Chiles to play significant roles next season. Graham, son of Gators running back great Earnest Graham, is a January enrollee and top-100 national recruit.

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.

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