College football team loses 34 players to transfer portal

Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; UCF Knights head coach Scott Frost talks with his team on the sidelines in the game against the Cincinnati Bearcats in the second half at Nippert Stadium. | Aaron Doster-Imagn Images

The 2026 college football transfer portal produced unprecedented churn in a compressed Jan. 2–16 window.

Across all divisions, more than 10,500 players entered the portal, including roughly 6,700 at the Division I level, with about 4,500 Division I players filing by midday on Day 1 alone.

The two-week, single-window format forced rapid, high-priced movement—quarterbacks and elite linemen commanding seven-figure deals—leaving programs scrambling to rebuild, including UCF.

UCF finished the 2025 season 5–7 overall and 2–7 in Big 12 play, missing a bowl game for a second straight year behind a middle-of-the-pack offense that averaged 378.8 total yards and 24.3 points per game.

Following the losing season, a wave of Knights entered the portal, many of whom were on the offensive side, and as of Friday, that number has climbed to 34, according to 247Sports, one of the largest departure totals in college football.

Provo, Utah, USA; UCF Knights quarterback Tayven Jackson (2) celebrates a touchdown against the BYU Cougars with UCF Knights defensive tackle Derrick Leblanc (88) during the second half at LaVell Edwards Stadium. | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

The issue isn’t merely the number of players lost, but the breadth of the damage, as UCF saw departures ranging from depth pieces to rotational contributors and high-profile starters across the roster.

Among the most notable losses are starting quarterback Tayven Jackson, defensive tackle John Walker, and center Carter Miller, along with four-star transfers quarterback Jacurri Brown and safety Jaeden Gould.

Those exits stripped immediate experience from critical positions, quarterback, the interior offensive line, defensive tackle, and the secondary, even as UCF worked to line up veteran replacements through the portal.

To counter the departures, UCF's head coach Scott Frost and his staff added 31 transfers, headlined by James Madison CFP quarterback Alonza Barnett III and former four-star prospect Artavius Jones from CFP finalist Miami.

Frost originally led the Knights from 2016–17, compiling a 19–7 record and guiding the 2017 team to an undefeated 13–0 season before departing for Nebraska.

His Nebraska tenure (2018–2022) yielded mixed results and a 16–31 record before UCF rehired him ahead of the 2025 season, banking on his past success and recruiting cachet to accelerate a rebuild.

While Frost has leaned heavily on the portal during the 2026 cycle, assembling a large incoming class in an effort to offset the mass roster turnover, losing 34 players in a single portal cycle is still significant, both in scale and in structural risk.

For UCF, the mass departures increase the urgency for Frost to leverage both the transfer portal and recruiting to rapidly build a roster capable of competing in the Big 12 after a losing 2025 season.

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