Former Oregon quarterback Jay Butterfield commits to transfer to San Jose State
Former Oregon quarterback Jay Butterfield has found his next career stop.
On Saturday, Butterfield announced that he has committed to transfer to San Jose State University.
It will mark a return home for the Brentwood, Calif., native and redshirt freshman.
In three seasons with the Ducks, Butterfield played in two games and went 3-for-4 passing for 23 yards.
A former 4-star recruit, Butterfield was the No. 155 overall player and the No. 11 quarterback in the class of 2020. He held offers from Washington State and Tennessee among a host of other programs.
Butterfield served as Oregon’s third-string quarterback during each of the past two seasons.
Since Butterfield entered the transfer portal on Nov. 30, Ducks’ starter Bo Nix announced that he will return for the 2023 season. The Ducks have also signed Austin Novosad, a 4-star signal-caller from the class of 2023.
Redshirt freshman Ty Thompson, who served as Oregon’s backup last season, is still with the program as well.
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.
