USC lands commitment from D3 All-American WR Jaden Richardson
USC has landed a surprise commitment on Tuesday afternoon as division three transfer wide receiver Jaden Richardson.
Richardson comes to USC via Tufts University, where he was named an All-American at the wide receivers position.
Richardson had previously committed to Cal out of the transfer portal, but flipped his commitment to the Trojans.
USC adds a 6-foot-2, 210 pound wideout originally from San Mateo, California. This is also a very impressive athlete, reporting a 36-inch vertical. Also reported was a 300-pound bench press, 500-pound squat, 700-pound deadlift, and a 315-pound clean.
He led the team and was second for NESCAC in touchdowns with 13, and led the team and was third in the NESCAC with 830 receiving yards, averaging 5.1 catches per game with 18 yards per catch and 92.2 yards per game.
Richardson was also named to the All-NESCAC first team and also was awarded the NESCAC Co-Offensive Player of the Year for 2023.
In the 2022 season, he scored seven touchdowns on the year with 666 yards from 41 receptions.
Coming out Menlo (Cal.) High School, Richardson was an two-time All-Bay Area First-team and All-League selection. He was a captain of the football and track teams and was named the PAL WR of the Year his senior year.
While in the portal, Richardson has announced offers of Washington, Wisconsin, Iowa State, Utah, Cal, UCF, UCONN, UMASS, Eastern Washington, James Madison, Nevada, Georgia Southern, Old Dominion, Butler, Southern Illinois, South Florida, UAPB, and others.
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.
