Will the popularity of the NCAA transfer portal change recruiting for high school QBs?

If you were a top 25 quarterback in one of the recruiting classes between 2016 and 2018, there’s a really good chance you’re no longer with the program where you started your college career.

To be exact, 31 of those 75 quarterbacks from the last three recruiting classes have either left the program they initially signed with or have entered their name in the transfer portal. For those of you who really like numbers, that figure comes out to be 41.3 percent of those four- and five-star gunslingers who are looking to finish their careers elsewhere.

Math isn’t exactly my strongpoint, but that’s a lot. Here’s what those numbers look like broken down by year:

Those figures don’t include quarterbacks outside the top 25 that have decided to part ways with their first program or are exploring other options through the transfer portal. The percentage might be lower, but the totals would be higher.

And with the growing trend of players entering the transfer portal — several within the first two years of their college career — it’s fair to wonder if the latest phenomenon in NCAA athletics will lead to change in recruiting, particularly for those high-profile high school quarterbacks.

“You wanna be a backup at Alabama or you wanna lead the nation in passing?”

That’s the famous quote Mike Leach used to land quarterback Gardner Minshew, who flipped from Alabama to Washington State to finish his college career. Minshew did exactly that, averaging 367.6 yards per game through the air, an NCAA best.

Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Now, Leach’s pitch is one that could become more applicable in the coming years when coaches meet with some of the top high school passers.

Transferring isn’t a new aspect to college sports, but the new NCAA transfer database is, as is a coach’s ability to reach out to a player who enters his name in that database, even if he’s undecided on whether he’ll stay or go. It’s created somewhat of a free agent market in college athletics. It’s hard not to notice that most of the teams seeing those top 25 quarterbacks depart are high-profile programs.

Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Clemson, Nebraska and Michigan are just a few schools that have waved goodbye to a quality quarterback. Sometimes, those players land at another blueblood program — Like Justin Fields going from Georgia to Ohio State or Jalen Hurts leaving Alabama for Oklahoma. Other times, guys pick an unexpected destination — Utah’s Jack Tuttle transferred to Indiana and Clemson’s Hunter Johnson headed to Northwestern.

It’s the latter that makes me believe things are going to change on the recruiting front. Perhaps it won’t be a drastic alteration, but a noticeable one.

Use Clayton Thorson as an example, a former four-star quarterback out of high school and one of the top 10 pro-style quarterbacks in the 2015 recruiting class. His commitment to Northwestern allowed him to win the starting job in his first year on campus and he proceeded to make B1G history by starting in 53 career games, which was every single contest from 2015-2018.

Not only did Thorson rewrite Northwestern’s record book, he was also selected in the fifth round of the 2019 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles.

Those are pretty good results.

Or you could look at Graham Mertz’s commitment to Wisconsin. The Badgers aren’t known for producing high-caliber NFL quarterbacks — at least not recently — yet the third-best pro-style quarterback in the 2019 class is headed to Madison where he’s expected to compete for the starting job immediately.

Credit: Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

Could it be a trend we start to see more frequently, high-profile quarterbacks steering away from the top-tier programs to walk into better situations, at least as far as playing time and opportunity are concerned? A lot of stress would be avoided by making that decision out of high school rather than having to go through the transfer process.

Obviously there are a lot of other factors involved. Making a college decision isn’t simply going to be based on immediate impact. Offensive style, coaching and educational opportunities are all aspects recruits have to consider. But with such a high percentage of quarterbacks transferring within a few years, recruits may start evaluating their decisions with a lot more thought.

Offers from Ohio State, Alabama, Clemson and the like will always be attractive to recruits. But coaches outside the blueblood description can use a pitch similar to the one Leach used on Minshew to sway top-ranked quarterbacks. Now, they’ll have figures from the transfer portal to back them up.

Will the high volume of quarterback transfers eventually change the recruiting landscape? It may be a few years before we know.