The door will close on the Transfer Portal at midnight for USF and every other college football team not named Indiana or Miami. Those two teams get an extra five days because they are playing for the national championship on Monday.
It's important to remember that players can still transfer after today's deadline, provided that they declared for the portal. They just can't enter it after today.
Bulls247.com identified 37 players who committed to USF through the portal compared to 32 who decided to leave. Running back Alvon Isaac initially entered the portal but later withdrew and will remain with the Bulls.
New head coach Brian Hartline brought in 24 players from power conference teams, several of whom were highly rated coming out of high school. He has a pair of quarterbacks -- Luke Kromenhoek from Florida State and Mississippi State, and Michael Van Buren Jr. from Mississippi State and LSU -- who were heavily recruited 4-star players in high school.
Why hasn't it worked out for them in college? There could be a variety of reasons.
For Kromenhoek, it appears to be a case of bad timing. He was FSU's third starting quarterback in a disintegrating 2-10 season for the Seminoles. In the season finale against Florida, he was sacked eight times as the porous FSU line gave him no protection. He transferred to Mississippi State, where he played in only three games. That preserved his redshirt.
Van Buren was recruited by many of the biggies -- Alabama, Miami, Michigan, Oregon, Penn State, Tennessee, and so on. Obviously, the talent was there. He started several games last season for LSU, but that, too, was a house on fire with a midseason coaching change.
USF is a place where both QBs can get a fresh start under a head coach renowned for his offensive prowess.
Wide receiver Armani Winfield is another interesting portal pickup for the Bulls. On3 currently gave him 4 stars, and he is said to have explosive speed and, at 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds, he presents an inviting target for whoever is the quarterback.
Winfield started at Baylor and transferred to Colorado State. Given Hartline's reputation for developing wide receivers, Winfield couldn't be in better hands to fully unlock what seems to be untapped talent.
That's an apt way to sum up this portal class for the Bulls. As you go down the list of newcomers, you see multiple players who were heavily recruited with expectations of high-level production.
Tight end Kade Caton could fit there. He is 6-foot-5, 250 pounds, and was regarded as the number 63 tight end coming out of high school. He signed with Oregon, but it didn't work out. He saw basically action in two years, but you look at that frame and imagine what he could be like if USF can find the secret sauce to uncork his potential.
Trying to build a team through the portal is tricky, especially when taking players who have already transferred two or more times. Hartline and. his staff didn't have any choice, though. The guts of USF's 2025 starting offense wound up in Auburn with former Bulls coach Alex Golesh, along with some incoming freshmen.
The newcomers will need "Hi, My Name Is...." badges for a while. This won't be a finished product right out of the gate. But leaders will emerge, standards will be set, the potential is there, the excitement is there, and the expectation is for something very good.