The football transfer portal will slam shut on Saturday, December 28, until reopening for 10 days in April.
USF hasn’t been particularly active in bringing in new talent from the portal, although the Bulls picked up an interesting defensive lineman in Josh Celiscar. He played four years for UCF and was a team captain for the Knights before transferring to Texas A&M. They also added some beef on the offensive line.
Things didn’t seem to work out well for the young in Aggieland. He played in only one game and recorded a tackle. He is from nearby Winter Haven and will help fill a hole on the D-line left by the departure of Doug Blue-Eli, who transferred to Rutgers.
The biggest loss, however, is sophomore safety Tawfiq Byard. He transferred to Colorado after drawing much interest from multiple schools, including LSU.
BREAKING: USF transfer Safety Tawfiq Byard has Committed to Colorado, he tells @on3sports
— Hayes Fawcett (@Hayesfawcett3) December 25, 2024
The 6’1 200 Safety totaled 54 Tackles, 8.5 TFLs, 2 Sacks, 1 FR, & 1 INT this season
3 years of eligibility remaining https://t.co/RlUbB6Fk7q pic.twitter.com/ISFLogWoNu
Not far behind is quarterback Israel “Izzy” Carter, who entered the portal after the regular season ended. He has yet to find a landing spot, especially given his position. On3.com listed him as its seventh-best remaining quarterback in the portal and said UTEP is showing interest.
Kicker John Cannon also entered the portal, but the Bulls don’t have much to worry about there since Nico Gramatica – aka Thunder Leg – just completed his freshman season with the Bulls and should slide into the primary role with no problem.
Cannon will always have a special place in Bulls’ lore, however. In the Hawai`i Bowl against San Jose State, his pool shot off the right upright that caromed through the goalpost tied the game with two seconds remaining.
We know what happened after that. The Bulls won a classic in five overtimes on Christmas Eve, and the nation responded accordingly.
Double OT coming in the Hawaii Bowl on ESPN. It’s just past midnight eastern. Thanks for a great start to Christmas, @USFFootball and @SanJoseStateFB.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) December 25, 2024
Out of a sense of duty, I checked various sites that specialize in recruiting to see where USF ranked as a team in portal pickups.
On3 listed its top 70 teams, none of which was USF.
That’s just fine with me.
For one thing, the rankings are subjective. There undoubtedly is a formula to how the teams are placed, but the rankings look like chaos at first glance.
No. 2 Ole Miss, for instance, has 17 players coming in through the portal and 15 going out.
No. 6 FSU has 20 players leaving, with 10 swimming through the portal out to meet the Titanic – I mean, the Seminoles.
Farther down, we find No. 26 Notre Dame with four in and three out. Penn State (No. 38) has three in and five out.
The moral of the story: You can fill holes through the portal but it’s no way to build a program. Alex Golesh had what most believe was another strong high school recruiting class, and that matters more than the portal.
The portal will always be with us and it should be. Players get caught in bad situations and should have the right to change locations just as coaches have done for decades.
Constant roster turnover, however, can torpedo a program’s success.
Give me a strong recruiting class over a top portal ranking any day.