As the transfer portal continues to grow in popularity throughout college football, the 2023 season showed just how big of an impact transfers have made. In 2019, just 6.4% of FBS rosters were made up of transfers. That number grew to 20.5% in 2023.
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FBS rosters grow to 20.5% transfer players in 2023
As the transfer portal has continued to grow in popularity throughout college football, the 2023 season showed just how big of an impact transfers have made on the game.
In the 2019 season, just 6.4% of FBS rosters were made up of transfers, according to data from SportSource Analytics. That number grew to 20.5% of rosters in 2023.
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The biggest position group that has been impacted by the transfer portal has been at quarterback with 56 FBS teams having a transfer quarterback account for 75% or more of the team's passing yards during the 2023 season, according to SportSource Analytics. The top six quarterbacks in passing yards are all transfers, and the top 10 quarterbacks in passing touchdowns are all transfers.
This weekend, the teams in the Pac-12 and Big 12 title games will all feature transfer starting quarterbacks in Washington's Michael Penix Jr. and Oregon's Bo Nix, along with Texas' Quinn Ewers and Oklahoma State's Alan Bowman.
The ACC title game features Louisville's Jake Plummer, who followed coach Jeff Brohm from Purdue, and would have had another transfer QB on the other side had Florida State's Jordan Travis not been injured.
In the 2019 season, just 23.9% of starting quarterbacks were transfers compared to 55.7% in 2023. That has conversely affect the opportunity for freshmen quarterbacks to play. High school prospects were coming in more ready than ever and in 2019 when 10.1% of first-year quarterbacks were starters. That number has dropped to just 2.8 percent in 2023.
As the portal is about to open ahead of the 2024 season, it will be loaded with starting quarterbacks. Kansas State's Will Howard, Miami's Tyler Van Dyke, Temple's E.J. Warner, Will Rogers from Mississippi State, Tyler Shough from Texas Tech, Max Johnson from Texas A&M and a handful of other notable quarterbacks have already announced their decisions to transfer.