Oregon linebacker Keith Brown enters transfer portal
One of Oregon’s key returners at inside linebacker appears set for an exit from the program.
Keith Brown, a junior linebacker who was expected to compete for a starting spot in 2023, announced Saturday evening that has entered the transfer portal.
Brown announced the news via his Twitter account.
In 12 games last season, Brown recorded 21 tackles and 1.0 sack. While he was buried on the depth chart behind Noah Sewell and Justin Flowe early in the season, Brown made his first career start during Oregon’s Holiday Bowl win over North Carolina and recorded a team-high seven tackles.
Aside from Jeffrey Bassa, Brown is the Ducks’ lone returning inside linebacker who saw significant playing time with the Ducks last season.
Brown is the first Oregon player who has publicly declared his intention to re-enter the transfer portal since it re-opened on Saturday.
If Brown does, indeed, opt to transfer away from Oregon, the Ducks will lose one of the key figures from an already-thin inside linebacker room.
Bassa started 13 games for the Ducks last season and will be back in 2023. But redshirt freshmen Devon Jackson and Harrison Taggart are the lone returning ILBs from last year’s roster.
Former safety Jamal Hill has shifted to inside linebacker this spring, and Oregon also added Jestin Jacobs (Iowa) and Connor Soelle (Arizona State) via the portal during the offseason.
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.
