Where Kansas State is Ranked in the Transfer Portal Rankings
In this story:
Two main publications have released team transfer portal rankings, and Kansas State is ranked higher than some people may believe.
For the 2026 transfer portal cycle, 247Sports and On3 rank teams in the transfer portal's team rankings in different ways. On3, on one hand, uses an "index" to figure out how much talent a school has gained or lost. 247Sports looks at all the new players' "talent haul" in comparison. However, we will go more in-depth to understand how both sites rank teams.
The "Total Talent" method from 247Sports ranks teams using the Gaussian distribution, which is also called a bell curve. They think the same way about classes in their high school recruiting rankings. Regarding points earned, each team's score is the sum of all the ratings of the players who are moving to that team.
The lessening returns method assigns a rating score to each team's best commit that is equal to the team's full rating score. Each transfer is worth a little less than the one before it. This prevents teams from "spamming" the gateway with numerous low-level players to gain an advantage over teams that consist of only a few high-level players to move up their team transfer portal rankings. This score isn't very useful since it only looks at inflow. Teams that lose players to the transfer portal don't get punished in their rankings, it just keeps track of how many good players the school is getting.
As for On3, the "net talent" scale is used for their transfer portal index, which is like a team's equivalent of a "profit/loss" margin. Not just scouting grades, On3 uses a performance score to show how well a player really did on the field. They use an index that tells us how much better or worse the player is when they join the school and when they leave to enter the transfer portal.
A team's Index score goes up if they lose a backup with 3 stars and get a starter with 4 stars for example. A team can still maintain a low index number even if it has more "commits" by losing two 5-star players and acquiring five 3-star players. Instead of judging who necessarily has the "best" class, it measures a team's improvement relative to its own previous roster rather than a direct head-to-head comparison of who has the "best" overall transfer class.
Here now is a look at where Kansas State is ranked nationally.
No. 36 Transfer Class
247 Sports currently ranks Kansas State ahead of SMU, Wisconsin, and Utah, for example, in their team transfer portal rankings. The Wildcats are ranked No. 6 in the Big 12 conference rankings, ahead of Kansas, Houston, and TCU.
No. 64 Transfer Class
On3 currently has Kansas State ranked much lower in their national rankings. However, the site has the Wildcats ranked ahead of Michigan, Auburn, and Iowa State, for example.
The transfer window has officially closed, and regardless of where Kansas State is ranked in these team transfer portal rankings, the Wildcats are heading in the right direction.
More from Kansas State On SI
Ryan Kay is a journalist who graduated from Michigan State in 2003 and is passionate about covering college sports and enjoys writing features and articles covering various collegiate teams. He has worked as an editor at Go Joe Bruin and has been a contributor for Longhorns Wire and Busting Brackets. He is a contributor for Kansas State On SI.