I read an interesting article from The Athletic this morning. Max Olson was looking at the number of G5 players transferring to P5 schools. Of course there are a lot of successful stories of players who are thriving at their new P5 school. What about the other side of the coin.
Here is part of the article.
The Athletic studied 186 scholarship players who made G5-to-P5 transfers for the 2023 season. Specialists were excluded from the study, as were players who left
BYU,
Cincinnati, Houston and
UCF because those schools were moving to the Big 12.
There are several success stories among the players on that list. In fact, 49 of these transfers started 10 or more games at their new schools.
Tez Johnson (
Troy) and
Evan Williams (
Fresno State) became difference-makers for Oregon.
Jaylen Key (
UAB) has started 11 games at safety for
Alabama.
Jalen McLeod, an
All-Portal Team pick from App State, and three more G5 transfers became starters for
Auburn. The USF duo of
Xavier Weaver and
Jimmy Horn Jr. made a name for themselves as Shedeur Sanders’ go-to receivers at Colorado.
But the ones who made it tend to draw attention away from the many more who didn’t. Among these 186 transfers, 72 percent played fewer snaps for their new team, and 37 percent have not started a game this season.
A total of 104 of these transfers played 500-plus snaps for their former teams in 2022. How many were able to match or surpass that number on a Power 5 team this season? Only 13 of them.
This subset of transfer players logged a total of 95,637 snaps for Group of 5 teams during the 2022 season, according to Pro Football Focus data. This year? Their combined total snaps played is 60,345. The average among these 186 players was 190 fewer snaps.
Injuries are certainly a factor in those results, and they prevented some promising players from succeeding in 2023. Few transfers were more hyped in the spring than UTSA wide receiver
Zakhari Franklin. The Roadrunners’ all-time leading receiver transferred to
Ole Miss but missed his first three games due to injury and finished with just four catches for 38 yards for the Rebels.
Others weren’t able to break through and earn more significant roles.
Sean Tyler rushed for 1,000 yards at Western Michigan last year but was the No. 3 back at Minnesota.
Kent State’s
Collin Schlee ended up being QB3 at UCLA. Former Georgia State defensive lineman
Thomas Gore saw his snap count go from 610 down to 151 at Miami.
Offensive lineman Victor Cutler Jr. tried to go from Louisiana-Monroe to Ohio State, played 21 snaps as a backup and is now back in the portal. He was one of 69 players in this group who logged zero starts in 2023.
End of article
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