5 major college football programs ignoring the transfer portal trend

Sure, the LSU, Texas, and Ole Miss transfer portal playbook is getting plenty of attention. Coaches bringing in dozens of players and rebuilding rosters from scratch is exciting and grabs plenty of headlines. But everybody doesn't buy that plan.

Whether it's coaches who prefer to build up their rosters from within or coaches who put their chips into the high school recruiting class, there are plenty of outlier teams that just aren't paying all that much attention to the portal. Here are five teams that basically dipped a toe in the portal waters, but mostly stayed out of the portal pool.

Clemson

Yes, even before the Luke Ferrelli tampering issue arose, Dabo Swinney certainly wasn't exactly Mr. Transfer Portal. Part of the issue is philosophical-- Swinney has been vocal about his distaste for the portal and his preference to build his roster from within. But whatever the reasoning, Clemson took just nine portal additions, none of whom were ranked by 247sports above three stars.

Stanford

In the case of the Cardinal, the issue is likely academic. Stanford is a tough, tough school even for athletes, and Stanford has never been a big player in the portal market because the academic side of transferring to the school is fairly daunting. Despite a tough season, the Cardinal added just seven players in the portal, none ranked above three stars.

BYU

For the Cougars, the culture and fit with their program, not unlike Stanford, isn't for everybody. BYU has been a top program in recent years, but they're also big on building from within and being certain of roster cohesion by not putting together a team of mercenaries. Kalani Sitake added just nine portal players in this round and that's not really off brand (even if it's a sixth of Oklahoma's State 54-man portal class).

USC

It's not a problem with portal players, it's a problem with numbers that leaves the Trojans barely partaking of the portal class. USC added eight players in the portal, but with three four-stars it was still enough to rank sixth in 247's Big Ten portal rankings. But USC added 35 incoming recruits in the standard 2026 recruiting class. There are different approaches-- Penn State nabbed just 15 incoming recruits and then added 36 players in the portal. But with the nation's No. 1 incoming recruiting class, USC put its resources on the non-portal side of business.

Georgia

There's several factors in play. A 31-person recruiting class in the traditional recruiting world didn't leave Georgia a ton of room. Kirby Smart is nearly Dabo-like in general disdain for adding portal mercenaries. The Bulldogs facilitate their own culture, which isn't a fit for everybody. Whatever the reasoning, UGA added just nine portal players in this round, still picking up a pair of four-star recruits, but not going into the depth of LSU or Arkansas (each adding 40 portal players).