The spring transfer portal window officially closes today, meaning we’re in the final hours for players to submit their paperwork and transfer.
Over the last 10 days, we’ve seen over 1,000 players enter the portal in hopes of landing a new opportunity. The Big 12 has had several teams active in making additions, but also had several teams see some unexpected or undesired entries of their own.
Let’s take a look at the biggest winners and losers from the final portal cycle before the 2025 season.
Winner: Oklahoma State Defense
You’d be hard-pressed to find a team in the Big 12 that’s been more active than Oklahoma State over the last 10 days, as they’ve added seven commitments since the portal opened last Wednesday.
The Pokes’ most recent addition, Terrill Davis, is the reigning NCAA receiving champion with 1,609 yards and 15 touchdowns on 109 receptions a season ago.
Aside from Davis, however, Oklahoma State focused on making improvements to the defensive side of the ball, with its other six additions coming on that side. Five of those six additions come from Power Four programs, and several of them were starters or heavy contributors prior to heading to Stillwater. DeAndre Boykins (UNC), Darius Thomas (Louisville), De’Marion Thomas (Vanderbilt), Taje McCoy (Colorado), and Wendell Gregory (South Carolina) should all step in and immediately help improve what was one of the worst units in the Big 12.
Winner: Texas Tech NIL
Texas Tech went ballistic in the winter transfer portal cycle, and there’s not a team in America that can claim they’ve added more talent than the Red Raiders through the portal in this cycle. That’s thanks to one of the top NIL operations in the country.
The Red Raiders did most of their damage in the winter cycle, although an early April commitment from Davi Bailey and Thursday’s addition of Cash Cleveland certainly help even more. Where Texas Tech really won, though, was their ability to retain all of the top-teir talent that they landed a few months back.
With this being the last window for players to leave before 2025, some programs are having to deal with players looking to squeeze every last dollar they can out of negotiations. You didn’t see that in Lubbock, though, as the Red Raiders didn’t lose any of their major additions in this cycle. Instead they added a couple more pieces, are on the verge of getting Micah Hudson back in the fold.
Loser: Houston’s Secondary
With some key additions on the offensive side of the ball, it appeared that Houston was setting up for great chance to surprise some folks in the Big 12 next season. One of the biggest reasons for that optimism was that the Coogs produced defensive production last season that seemed well ahead of schedule.
If Willie Fritz could get just a touch better on offense, the Cougars could have enough balance to win more 50/50 games. Unfortunately, after their spring game, Houston received news that is detrimental to that hope.
Two of their best defenders, and both key returners to their secondary, have since entered the transfer portal. Safety AJ Haulcy and cornerback Jeremiah Wilson were both expected to be All-Big 12 level talents for UH in 2025, but now they’re headed for greener pastures. Does it spell doom for the 2025 season? No, but it certainly doesn’t help their chances.
Winner: TCU Horned Frogs
There’s not a single position in sports that is more important than quarterback, and when you have a good one, you do anything necessary to hang on to them.
When negotiations between Nico Iamaleava and Tennessee went sideways, the Volunteers immediately started putting feelers out to see if they could lure a top-end quarterback to Knoxville. One of their first, and most leaked attempts, was TCU quarterback Josh Hoover.
According to The Athletic, the Vols contacted Hoover to gauge his interest in transferring to Knoxville for the upcoming season. Additionally, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram says that this offer was incentivized with a $1 million raise over what he is making with the Horned Frogs.
Luckily for Sonny Dykes and Co., Hoover is “locked in” with TCU for the upcoming season after ranking among the best quarterbacks in the country last season in passing yards, yards per attempt, completion percentage, and touchdowns passes.
Loser: Big 12 Walk-ons
With the House vs. NCAA settlement looming, several Big 12 programs took the initiative to start trimming their rosters down to the new 105-man limit. Until now, schools have been permitted to have 85 scholarship players and then fill their roster out with as many walk-ons as they see fit.
However, this new settlement threatens to limit those walk-ons, and so programs like Kansas State and West Virginia got ahead of the curve and made the roster cuts necessary to abide by the coming rules.
Unfortunately, those cuts might’ve been unnecessary, as the judge overseeing this new settlement has put the agreement on hold over the roster constraints that are being suggested.
On Wednesday, a California judge announced that she won’t be approving the settlement unless there are changes made to the roster limits. Instead, she proposed that players that are currently at risk of losing their spots because of the sweeping change be grandfathered in.
So, does that mean dozens of athletes just uprooted their lives for no reason? C’mon NCAA. We’ve got to do better by the athletes than this.
