Report: Virginia Football Hosting Top 5 Transfer Cornerback

The college football spring transfer portal window opens on Wednesday, April 16th, but there are a number of players already in the transfer portal who are looking for a new home. One of those players is former Fresno State cornerback Julian Neal, who previously transferred to Stanford back in December, but then re-entered the transfer portal last week following the firing of head coach Troy Taylor. Neal, who is ranked as the No. 4 available cornerback in the transfer portal according to 247Sports, is taking a visit to Virginia beginning on Tuesday (April 15), as reported by Chris Hummer of CBS Sports.

Virginia is set to host CB transfer Julian Neal later today, his father tells @247Sports/@CBSSports.

Neal, who played last season for Fresno State, ranks as the No. 4 CB in the @247SportsPortal transfer rankings.

He's coming off a visit to Syracuse.https://t.co/QQpOAdUhDO pic.twitter.com/t81iBP9hB3
— Chris Hummer (@chris_hummer) April 15, 2025

A 6'2", 200-pound defensive back from San Francisco, California, Neal spent the last four years at Fresno State, but played just seven combined games in his first two seasons at Fresno State in 2021 and 2022. The following season, Neal played in 11 games and made nine total tackles, including seven solo stops, as well as two tackles for loss and one pass defended.

Neal stepped into a bigger role this past season, appearing in all 12 games with four starts and finishing with 35 tackles, 22 solo stops, five tackles for loss, two interceptions, six passes defended, and one sack. He was second on the team in pass breakups and tied for second in interceptions.

Neal entered the transfer portal at the end of the 2024 season and committed to Stanford over a host of Power Four offers, including one from Virginia. But after Stanford suddenly fired head coach Troy Taylor and replaced him with Frank Reich on an interim basis, Neal was one of several notable names on Stanford's roster to enter the transfer portal, with that window opening automatically due to the coaching change. Another Stanford transfer, wide receiver Emmett Mosley V, visited Virginia last week, but wound up committing to Texas on Monday.

247Sports ranks Julian Neal as the No. 4 cornerback and No. 70 overall prospect in the transfer portal. Rivals reported last week that Neal had been contacted by more than a dozen Power Four programs since entering the portal, including Florida State, Auburn, Arkansas, Syracuse, USC, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, Cal, Missouri, Kentucky, and Mississippi State. According to the report from Chris Hummer, Neal's visit to Virginia comes on the heels of a visit to fellow ACC school Syracuse over the weekend.

Cornerback is by far Virginia's biggest position of need in the spring transfer portal window. UVA's two starting cornerbacks last year were Kempton Shine and Jam Jackson. Shine exhausted his eligibility and Jackson returned for another season, but went down with a knee injury near the end of spring practice. Head coach Tony Elliott said that they wouldn't know for another week or two if Jackson's injury would require surgery.

"And then with Jam, a red zone play in a scrimmage situation, [he] came down wrong," Elliott said of Jackson's injury last week. "We initially thought hyper extension. They did some scans. They did notice that there may be some some ligament damage, but they don't know what extent. So they're going to take another week, kind of let them rehab a little bit, and then reassess. So I'll know more probably in about a week and a half, two weeks on Jam."

In the winter transfer portal window, Virginia brought in just one cornerback, Morgan State's Ja'son Prevard. Junior Dre Walker is the only other cornerback with significant experience at that position and he was injured for extended stretches of the 2024 season as well. Even before the injury to Jackson, the Cavaliers were likely going to be in the market for at least two or three cornerbacks in the spring transfer portal. That number could end up being an underestimation.

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