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Florida Gators receiver Tank Hawkins entering transfer portal

On3 imageby: Keith Niebuhr8 hours agoOn3Keith

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida Gators receiver Tank Hawkins plans to enter the transfer portal. He has three seasons of eligibility remaining.

Hawkins, a 5-foot-9.5, 178-pound sophomore from Bradenton (Fla.) IMG Academy, is a native of West Virginia. He came to Gainesville as a 4-star recruit who picked the Gators over Miami, Oregon, Penn State and others, and had 12 receptions for 116 yards and one touchdown over two seasons.

As a true freshman, Hawkins recorded 10 receptions for 100 yards. He seemed poised to do more in 2025, but that never materialized. Hawkins caught just two passes in four games played and in November decided to opt out the remainder of the season to preserve a redshirt. His final appearance came against Georgia on Nov. 1.

“Tank came up, very professional,” said Billy Gonzales, then UF’s interim coach. “He came out and asked if he could preserve his redshirt. Absolutely. I said I 100 percent honor it.

During his senior season of high school, Hawkins helped lead IMG Academy to a 10-0 record; he finished that campaign with 26 catches for 483 yards with four touchdowns.

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 window for FBS players to enter the portal opens Jan. 2 and closes on Jan. 16.

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