Stanford Football Loses Wide Receiver to Transfer Portal

The college football offseason is starting. While the 12 playoff teams are focused on the task of winning a national championship, the rest of the college football world is looking ahead to next season, where the goal of the offseason is to build a championship level roster. For teams like the Stanford Cardinal, getting back to the national spotlight will be the main focus.

Hiring a new head coach in Tavita Pritchard, a new era of Stanford football is here. Finishing 4-8 in 2025 after finishing 3-9 the previous four seasons, the Cardinal still have a long way to go in their rebuild, but are confident that Pritchard can lead them back to the top.

But even with a new coach at the helm and the confidence boost that comes with that, today's era of college sports will still see players enter the transfer portal. Earlier this week, the Cardinal saw their first player enter the transfer portal this offseason, with wide receiver Jason Thompson announcing his intention to enter.

A redshirt junior from Harvard-Westlake, Thompson joined Stanford ahead of the 2022 season, spending his true freshman campaign as a special teamer. Playing in six games in 2022, Thompson played primarily on special teams, returning four punts for 14 yards and 17 kicks for 335 yards. In total, he accumulated 161 all-purpose yards.

In 2023, Thompson appeared in 10 games on special teams and was poised for a shot to earn more playing time on offense in 2024. But after suffering an injury, he was forced to miss the season and ended up redshirting instead.

In 2025, Thompson did not play, except for a lone appearance in the 128th Big Game. Overall during his tenure at Stanford, Thompson was pivotal on special teams but struggled to establish himself as a key force on offense.

Ending his high school career with 29 touchdowns and 3,424, Thompson's best season came as a senior where he caught 64 passes for 1,237 yards and 18 touchdowns. But Thompson's most memorable moment as a high school player was during the league championship game during his junior season where he amassed 380 yards and five touchdowns.

Enjoying an accolade-filled prep career, Thompson was a top-150 ranked wide receiver and a top-90 prospect in the state of California.

Now in the portal, Thompson will look to finish his career at a place where he can make more of an impact on offense. While Stanford's wide receiver core is still to be determined for next season and beyond, it is very likely that Pritchard will want to clean house and revamp the program, making someone like Thompson more expendable.

The transfer portal does not officially open up until early January, but players who want to enter are already making their intentions known. Several big name players have already announced that they are planning to transfer, and with a lot of talent available for grabs, expect a guy like Thompson to garner a considerable amount of interest from top schools at the Power Four level.

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