Transfer Portal or HS Recruits for UCF?

What works for UCF recruiting is not the same as Alabama and Ole Miss.

Should the UCF Knights focus more on recruiting high school players than it has to this point? There are many different people with varying opinions.

Helping understand UCF’s recruiting situation, using other teams and how they recruit is a good way to go about it.

To do this, Alabama and Ole Miss recruiting are first looked at a little bit closer, then UCF. Before that, there’s one key theme to remember because it’s the crux of the reason that some teams are looking to the Transfer Portal more than others.

The bottom line comes with amassing top-notch talent. Certain tradition-rich schools usually sign the lion’s share of the truly elite recruits with 30, 40 and sometimes 50-plus offers.

That trend does not appear to be making massive shifts based on the past three to five years of college football recruiting. That’s where the Transfer Portal comes into play; it helps teams gather talent that it probably would not obtain as quickly without the transfers coming in.

Now, onto two different SEC schools and how they are recruiting, and then a look at UCF.

Alabama Crimson Tide

It’s Alabama for crying out loud. Does Alabama really need to shuffle the deck with how it brings in talent? Nope. Subtle changes? Absolutely.

In 2021, the Crimson Tide signed Jameson Williams from the Transfer Portal after he was at Ohio State. This upcoming season, Alabama has running back Jahmyr Gibbs that transferred from Georgia Tech. In the NFL Draft, Williams just went 12th overall to the Detroit Lions. Gibbs is likely headed to the NFL after the 2022 season.

Both are elite players. There’s no real reason for that particular program to just take a flier on a player in the Transfer Portal. It’s just not necessary.

For Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban, adding a dash of talent via the Transfer Portal is all he needs to continue to see the Crimson Tide thrive. Does that work for every SEC school, though?

Ole Miss Rebels

Known as an excellent recruiter, Ole Miss Head Coach Lane Kiffin has gone in a completely different direction from what Saban is doing in Tuscaloosa.

Sitting with five commitments in the 2023 recruiting class, the Rebels are going hard after players in the Transfer Portal. Heading into the 2022 season, Ole Miss has 17 transfers slated to wear the famed powder blue helmets.

That’s a far cry from what Saban, Kiffin’s mentor, is doing. Hey, it works for him though, so that’s fine. Ole Miss has several elite transfers coming in like running back Zach Evans from TCU and Southern California flex tight end Michael Trigg.

In 2021, the Rebels went after more high school recruits, signing 25 prep prospects as compared to just four players from the Transfer Portal. Obviously Kiffin has shifted his strategy.

Now, UCF is utilizing concepts that both Alabama and Ole Miss use for obtaining talent.

UCF Knights

Head Coach Gus Malzahn has assembled an assistant coaching staff that gets after it on the recruiting trail. They are focusing on high school players primarily from Florida, Georgia and Alabama.

From its 2022 recruiting class, UCF signed 14 high school prospects. There will be just as many incoming transfers being brought in by those assistant coaches as well. It’s a balance of the two categories as UCF picked up double digit transfers thus far.

Wide receiver Kobe Hudson and nose guard Lee Hunter are expected to help right away after being at Auburn. There’s tight end Kemore Gamble transferring to UCF from Florida, as well as wide receiver Javon Baker making the change after playing for Alabama. That’s an impressive group just from four of the transfers the Knights signed.

Then there's quarterback John Rhys Plumlee coming over from, ironically, Ole Miss. He's competing for the starting job behind center.

UCF could add more transfers for this upcoming season. Time will tell. Bottom line, UCF has found its happy place with high school recruiting and the Transfer Portal combining to improve the Knights’ roster.

In essence, UCF is some place between where Alabama and Ole Miss are with high school recruits and the Transfer Portal.

Will UCF move to taking more and more high school players in the future? Quite possibly, but that’s still to be determined.

As noted above, the goal is to acquire top-notch talent. If that comes from the Transfer Portal instead of the high school ranks, that’s what UCF will do. That could shift at any given time if UCF can sign more elite prep prospects.

---

Follow UCF Knights coverage at Inside The Knights on Facebook, @UCF_FanNation on Twitter, and ucf_insidetheknights on Instagram.