🏈 🔵 My Favorite Big Ten Transfer Portal Classes
Five of 247Sports' top-25 transfer portal hauls come from Big Ten squads. Which one has the highest ceiling for instant production?
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My Favorite Big Ten Transfer Portal Classes
Hey friends,
College football’s offseason is in the thick of the transfer portal’s second window, where change is seemingly rocking personnel groups by the minute.
While unforeseen departures have hurt some squads, others have bolstered positions of need by snagging plug-and-play commodities in the form of proven production.
In the Big Ten, I’ve had my eye on three teams who have dominated the portal window.
The conference has five programs in 247Sports’ Transfer Team Rankings, which compiles the best portal hauls from the offseason.
Without further ado, let’s dive into my three favorite portal classes within the Big Ten.
Michigan State
After former head coach Mel Tucker was let go at the front end of a scandal-ridden campaign last September, Michigan State quickly fell into disarray.
The Spartans compiled a 4-8 record and won just two Big Ten matchups against Nebraska and Indiana in November.
Moreover, Michigan State lost 39 players to the portal due to a combination of Tucker’s firing and former Oregon State head coach Jonathan Smith’s newfound stamp on the program.
Smith and his staff immediately went to work and pieced together a top-20 portal cohort by landing 15 commitments, highlighted by three blue-chip prospects.
California native Aidan Chiles decided to follow Smith from Oregon State to East Lansing, and he’ll presumably start under center for the Spartans this fall.
Chiles ranked as the No. 2 quarterback among all portal entrants, trailing just Alabama’s Julian Sayin, who went to Ohio State.
Aside from adding a highly-touted 6’3” gunslinger, Smith inked the services of Wayne Matthews III by way of Old Dominion.
The veteran linebacker garnered dozens of offers as the fourth-best linebacker in the portal. Last season, he finished second in the Sun Belt with 135 tackles.
He also totaled 9.5 tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks for the Monarchs. Smith and company were able to retool by landing prospects of dire need on both sides of the ball, which should make the Spartans a tough out moving forward.
Oregon
All Oregon head coach Dan Lanning does is win — both on the field and the recruiting trail.
The Ducks pulled together 11 commitments through the portal, highlighted by one five-star and five four-star prospects.
Lanning was able to land talent from each of the following Power Four schools:
Washington, Texas A&M, Duke, Houston, Kansas State, UCLA, Oklahoma, and Indiana.
Oregon isn’t just landing Group of Five up-and-comers and hoping each prospect buds into an all-conference contributor.
Instead, Lanning prides his culture on growth through competition, and that’s exactly what he did through his portal output.
Take a look at his quarterback room, for example. In the same cycle, Lanning picked up Oklahoma’s Dillon Gabriel and UCLA’s Dante Moore.
Although both passers are sure-fire starters at most high-level programs, the two blue-chip products will now be vying for playing time in the same locker room.
Gabriel will likely earn the nod over the younger Moore, who appeared in nine matchups as a true freshman last campaign.
The former Sooner, on the other hand, has thrown for a total of 14,865 yards throughout a five-year career with UCF and Oklahoma.
Aside from quarterback, the Ducks retooled their depleted second level by grabbing three quality cover corners in Jabbar Muhammad, Kam Alexander, and Brandon Johnson.
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Ohio State
There’s no doubt that Oregon’s transfer portal group is deeper in quantity than the class Ryan Day put together for Ohio State.
But, in Columbus, the mantra “quality over quantity” has always related to the Buckeyes’ tradition of excellence.
Day landed just six commitments, but with an average rating of 94.00 per player according to 247Sports.
For reference, the quality of Ohio State’s newest prospects is nearly five points higher than Ole Miss’s, which ranks No. 1 nationally in incoming portal production.
Once Nick Saban announced his retirement as Alabama’s head coach in January, Day went straight to work by poaching three of the Crimson Tide’s best players.
The Buckeyes landed the portal’s No. 1 prospect in safety Caleb Downs, who won SEC Freshman of the Year honors in 2023.
To replace outgoing gunslinger Kyle McCord, Day won over the recruitment of Kansas State’s Wil Howard, who garnered a second-team All-Big 12 selection behind 24 touchdown passes last season.
While most thought Day was done in the portal at the quarterback position, he shockingly picked up a pledge from Alabama true freshman Julian Sayin.
Sayin committed to Saban as the No. 1 prospect in California a year ago with 24 other offers under his belt.
After a promising spring, Sayin lost his “black stripe,” placed on the helmets of all first-year Ohio State players, quicker than any quarterback in program history.
On top of Day’s ridiculous haul, he paired TreVeyon Henderson’s talent in the backfield with Ole Miss’s Quinshon Judkins.
The bruiser rumbled for 2,725 yards in two seasons with the Rebels behind five yards per carry. He’s scored 34 total touchdowns for Lane Kiffin’s bunch, giving Day a reliable goal-line threat.
In my mind, Ohio State’s current portal class is the best college football has ever seen from a talent and quality standpoint.
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Shoutout to Connor Krause for helping to write this newsletter and putting it together!
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