College football team attempting to retain $4 million transfer portal player amid major interest

Boulder, Colorado, USA; Colorado Buffaloes offensive tackle Jordan Seaton (77) before the game against the North Dakota State Bison at Folsom Field. | Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

After Colorado’s 2024 breakout under head coach Deion Sanders, a season that saw the Buffaloes finish 9–4 (7–2 Big 12) and appear in the Alamo Bowl, the program’s first bowl game since 2020, the team regressed sharply in 2025.

Colorado posted a 1–8 record in Big 12 play and finished 3–9 overall, losing seven of its final eight games.

Three of those losses came at home, a collapse that fell well short of the 2024 standard and helped trigger widespread roster turnover and multiple transfer portal departures.

More recently, reports have emerged that starting left tackle Jordan Seaton plans to enter the transfer portal, a move that would immediately remove one of the program’s most important long-term building blocks.

Seaton played in the first nine games of the 2025 season before missing the final three due to injury, logging 541 snaps, allowing just one sack, and surrendering five total pressures. 

His performance earned him All–Big 12 Second Team honors, finishing as the conference’s 11th-best pass blocker, the second-best offensive tackle, and the 10th-highest graded offensive tackle among Power Five players.

Seaton entered college as one of the most highly touted offensive line prospects in the country and immediately became a true freshman starter in 2024 under Sanders.

A former IMG Academy standout, he was ranked as the No. 1 offensive tackle in the 2024 class by the 247Sports Composite and widely viewed as a blue-chip cornerstone recruit.

That recruiting pedigree established both his immediate starting timeline and his long-term marketability, as Seaton currently carries one of the highest NIL valuations in college football at approximately $1.7 million, a figure widely expected to rise significantly.

On3 founder Shannon Terry recently suggested that Seaton could command multi-million-dollar NIL packages in the $3.5–$4 million range, placing him among the five highest-paid athletes in all of college sports.

Those valuations help explain why elite Power Five programs are closely monitoring his situation. 

On Thursday, On3’s Pete Nakos reported that Oregon and Texas have emerged as two of the early programs to watch for the elite tackle, with Seaton identified as the No. 1 offensive tackle prospect in the current portal cycle.

Nakos also noted that Colorado is also attempting to keep Seaton in Boulder.

Boulder, Colorado, USA; Colorado Buffaloes offensive tackle Jordan Seaton (77) looks on before the game against the Utah Utes at Folsom Field. | Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

Oregon finished the 2025 season ranked No. 5 nationally, earning a spot in the College Football Playoff and making a deep run before falling to top-ranked Indiana in the semifinals.

Despite the loss, the Ducks have enjoyed sustained offensive-line success under head coach Dan Lanning and operate within a robust NIL market, allowing them to both financially compete for elite talent and offer immediate championship exposure.

Texas is also coming off a strong 2025 campaign, finishing 10–3 and capturing a bowl victory. 

With roster turnover along the offensive line and an aggressive approach in the transfer portal, the Longhorns view Seaton as a plug-and-play left tackle capable of solidifying the blindside of star quarterback Arch Manning.

Given the recent on-field success, strong NIL infrastructure, and clear positional needs for both programs, it's easy to see why both have emerged early in Seaton’s recruitment.

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