The NCAA transfer portal opened Friday and will remain open through Jan. 16. Players on the two College Football Playoff finalists will also have an extra five-day period from Jan. 20-24 to transfer after their season ends.
There are more than 4,000 Division I football players currently in the transfer portal, according to ESPN. Here is a look at 10 notable former Dallas-area players who are transferring.
QB Brendan Sorsby
The Lake Dallas product is the No. 1 player in ESPN’s portal rankings and is transferring from Cincinnati to Texas Tech. One of the best dual-threat quarterbacks in the country joins a Texas Tech team that just won the school’s first Big 12 title and earned a first-round bye in the College Football Playoff.
Sorsby is tied for 15th in the nation with 27 touchdown passes, and he threw for 2,800 yards as a redshirt sophomore. He also ran for 580 yards and nine touchdowns in his second season at Cincinnati after transferring from Indiana. He is projected to be one of the top quarterbacks in the 2027 NFL draft.
High School Sports
Sorsby was a three-star recruit at Lake Dallas and was rated the 66th-best quarterback in the nation in the Class of 2022. He threw for 1,273 yards and 14 touchdowns and ran for 790 yards and 15 touchdowns as a senior at Lake Dallas in 2021.
QB Josh Hoover
The former Rockwall-Heath star is transferring from TCU to Indiana and could be the Hoosiers’ replacement for Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza. Mendoza, who has led Indiana to Friday’s College Football Playoff semifinal against Oregon, is expected to enter the NFL draft and could be the No. 1 pick.
Hoover threw for a school-record 3,949 yards at TCU in 2024 and followed that with 3,472 yards and 29 touchdown passes this season for a 9-4 team. Hoover, who originally committed to Indiana before signing with TCU, has one year of eligibility remaining.
RB Caden Durham
The former Duncanville superstar has put his name in the transfer portal after two seasons at LSU. Durham was LSU’s leading rusher the last two years, running for 753 yards and six touchdowns in 2024 and for 505 yards and three touchdowns this season.
With Durham leaving, LSU just added former Mansfield Lake Ridge and Aledo star running back Raycine Guillory, who is transferring from Utah. Guillory redshirted as a freshman this season, but he was rated the 39th-best running back in the nation in the Class of 2025. Guillory was the leading rusher with 1,236 yards and 17 touchdowns on Aledo’s 2023 state championship team.
Durham was The Dallas Morning News All-Area Offensive Player of the Year as a senior in 2023 after running for 2,027 yards and scoring 40 touchdowns (36 rushing) for a 14-1 Duncanville team that finished No. 8 in the MaxPreps national ranking. He ran for 231 yards and three touchdowns in the final game of his high school career, a 49-33 win over Galena Park North Shore in the Class 6A Division I state championship game, as Duncanville won its second straight state title.
Durham ran for 3,987 yards and 72 touchdowns in his final two seasons at Duncanville, and he scored a touchdown in all 29 games that he played in during that span. Durham ran on Duncanville’s 4×200-meter relay team that broke the high school national record by winning the Class 6A state title in 1:22.25 in the 2024 track season, and he was also on Duncanville’s state runner-up 4×100 relay team that year that ran 39.47, a time that only two schools in national history have beat.
RB Quintrevion “Tre” Wisner
Wisner, who was the second-leading rusher on DeSoto’s 2022 state championship team, is transferring from Texas to Florida State. Wisner led UT in rushing the last two years, finishing with 1,064 yards in 2024 and 597 yards as a junior for this season’s 10-3 team.
Wisner was a third-team all-SEC selection in 2024. That year he was UT’s third-leading receiver with 44 catches for 311 yards and one touchdown in an offense that featured wide receivers Matthew Golden and Isaiah Bond and running back Jaydon Blue, all now in the NFL.
WR Johntay Cook II
The former DeSoto phenom plans to enter the portal and leave Syracuse after leading the team with 45 catches for 549 yards and two touchdowns. He played for Texas his first two years of college, catching 16 passes for 273 yards and two touchdowns in 2023 and 2024 combined.
This will be the third time that Cook has transferred, as he was briefly at Washington after the 2024 season before transferring to Syracuse in the spring of 2025. Cook was a five-star All-American at DeSoto, was rated the fourth-best wide receiver in the nation in the Class of 2023 and was The Dallas Morning News All-Area Offensive Player of the Year in 2022 after catching 84 passes for 1,478 yards and 22 touchdowns as a senior and leading DeSoto to the Class 6A Division II state title.
WR Parker Livingstone
The Lovejoy product is leaving Texas after he had 29 receptions for 516 yards and six touchdowns as a redshirt freshman. He was second on the team in touchdown receptions and third in receiving yards.
Livingstone was a top-50 recruit in the state for the Class of 2024 coming out of high school. He had big seasons for Lovejoy in 2021 and 2022, catching 95 passes for 1,874 yards and 28 touchdowns over his sophomore and junior seasons.
WR Landon Sides
The former Denton Guyer standout is leaving North Texas after catching 34 passes for 449 yards and a touchdown for a 12-2 team. He has one year of eligibility remaining.
Sides had a breakout season for Guyer in 2022, catching 60 passes for 1,358 yards and 16 touchdowns.
QB Michael Hawkins Jr.
The four-star quarterback from Frisco Emerson is transferring to West Virginia after playing at Oklahoma his first two years of college. He played in seven games and made four starts in 2024, throwing for 783 yards and three touchdowns while running for 204 yards and a score, then he appeared in two games this season.
Hawkins was rated the 20th-best quarterback in the nation in the Class of 2024, and he accounted for 52 touchdowns and 3,688 yards of total offense as a senior in 2023. He is expected to have three years of eligibility remaining, as he’ll reportedly take a redshirt for 2025.
OL Henry Fenuku
The four-star offensive lineman from North Crowley is entering the transfer portal after spending one season at Missouri. He was a MaxPreps second-team All-American and was selected for the Navy All-American Bowl after helping North Crowley go 16-0 and win the Class 6A Division I state title in 2024.
OL Emeka Ugorji
The 2024 first-team all-area selection from South Oak Cliff is leaving Stanford after one year. He played in 10 games and made eight starts for Stanford as a freshman.
As a senior at South Oak Cliff, Ugorji didn’t allow a sack in 2024 for a 13-3 team that was the Class 5A Division II state runner-up. Ugorji was rated the 77th-best offensive tackle in the nation.
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