More than 60% of Power Four quarterbacks were transfers at one point in their career. That percentage has carried over into the College Football Playoff, where five of the eight starters in the quarterfinals — everyone but Gunner Stockton (Georgia), Drew Allar (Penn State) and Maddux Madsen (Boise State) — are former transfers.
So how did their portal recruitments go back in the day? Let’s take a look at how they picked the school they did and who was the runner-up in their processes.
Dillon Gabriel’s college career will be, in part, defined by his two transfer choices.
He spent three years at UCF before entering the portal following the 2021 season. He committed to UCLA reasonably quickly. But then two things happened that changed Gabriel’s path:
1. Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma for USC, eventually taking five-star true freshman starter Caleb Williams with him.
2. New Sooners head coach Brent Venables hired Jeff Lebby.
Lebby had served as Gabriel’s true freshman offensive coordinator back at UCF. When Williams eventually made his way out to Los Angeles — following an exhausting will-he-or-won’t-he-back-and-forth with Oklahoma – Lebby needed to find a quarterback. So he called Gabriel.
Despite the push from Lebby, Gabriel committed to UCLA. Then on Jan. 3, the day Gabriel was supposed to enroll at UCLA, he went dark. He never showed up for class and didn’t respond to the Bruins’ staff. He flipped to Oklahoma later that night.
Gabriel went on to put up massive numbers in Norman for two seasons. Then he opted to enter the transfer portal once again following the 2023 campaign with Oklahoma wanting to clear the runway for Jackson Arnold.
Gabriel’s second portal recruitment was far less eventful.
Gabriel was Oregon’s preferred QB take the moment he hit the portal, per multiple sources. If you’re looking for a runner-up in his process, look no further than Mississippi State. The Bulldogs hired Lebby last December, and he did make a push for Gabriel. A visit never materialized, however. Gabriel also once again considered UCLA.
Leavitt didn’t have the high-profile portal recruitment of some of the other transfer quarterbacks involved. He ranked as the No. 28 overall QB in the 247Sports transfer portal rankings last cycle and, in some ways, was viewed as Jaden Rashada insurance when he committed.
He’s been much more than that to ASU. Rashada did end up transferring, to Georgia, and Leavitt ended up leading ASU to its best season in a generation as a redshirt freshman this year.
As for Leavitt’s other transfer options, BYU was probably the runner-up in his process.
Leavitt has deep ties to the Cougars. He spent one season of high school football in Utah at Pleasant Grove High School, which is just miles away from BYU’s campus. His dad, Jared, played for BYU, as did his brother, Dallin. Leavitt also took a visit to BYU during his transfer process.
Ultimately, though, Arizona State won out over the Cougars along with other programs like Utah, Washington State and Oregon State.
It always seemed likely Ewers would end up at Texas upon his transfer from Ohio State, but a few other Lone Star State schools took a swing.
Ewers visited both Texas Tech and TCU, but it was the Red Raiders who made the biggest push for Ewers. Only a month or so into the Joey McGuire era at the time, Texas Tech wanted to make a splash. The Red Raiders had already hired 247Sports Offensive Coordinator of the Year, Zach Kittley, who’d just coached Bailey Zappe to a record-setting season, and were looking for a superstar quarterback to pair with him — and were prepared to tap into an alumni base flush with oil money to make it happen.
Ewers and his family loved his trip to Texas Tech, per multiple sources at the time, but Texas did win out in the end for a player who grew up a Texas fan and had committed to the Longhorns for a time in high school.
Frankly, Riley Leonard was bound for Notre Dame from the minute he hit the transfer portal. That’s where the 247Sports Crystal Ball sat the entire time and that’s the only team that garnered any real traction. Forced to choose a runner-up in the process, Ohio State is a fair answer.
The Buckeyes were trying to avoid publicly recruiting a quarterback at the time to keep their room intact. But as evidenced by their eventual addition of Will Howard, the Buckeyes were very much in the market. Leonard made a lot of sense for Ohio State and there was at least some interest on the Buckeyes’ side of things. But this was Irish all the way.
Howard had an interesting transfer process. He announced his intention to enter the portal on Nov. 27 and, unlike a lot of other top quarterbacks, had an extended portal process, committing to Ohio State more than a month later on Jan. 4.
Howard took visits to USC and Miami during his transfer process. The Trojans seemed like the more likely destination, but that changed once Miller Moss went nuclear in the Holiday Bowl, which convinced Lincon Riley he did not need to add an older quarterback in the portal.
Miami also really liked Howard, but the Hurricanes made the decision to go all-in on Cameron Ward around mid-December of last year.
That left Howard in a limbo of sorts — at least publicly — but it’s more likely that Ohio State just had him wait to commit until after the winter transfer portal window closed in order to protect its room.
The portal closed on Jan. 2, 2024. It was reported Howard would visit Ohio State on Jan. 3. He committed the next day on Jan. 4.
MORE: Tom Fornelli ranks the remaining quarterbacks in the College Football Playoff