{"id":427851,"date":"2026-01-24T22:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/427851\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T22:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:30:11","slug":"college-football-program-loses-47-players-to-transfer-portal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/427851\/","title":{"rendered":"College football program loses 47 players to transfer portal"},"content":{"rendered":"

College football\u2019s 2025 season produced surprise collapses and underperformance from several blue-blood programs, from top-ranked Texas and Heisman favorite Arch Manning missing the postseason, to Clemson suffering its worst year under Dabo Swinney despite opening the year ranked No. 4 in the AP preseason poll.<\/p>\n

Yet arguably the biggest disappointment, and the most consequential roster upheaval, has come at Penn State.<\/p>\n

Penn State finished the 2025 season\u00a07\u20136 (3\u20136 Big Ten)\u00a0and capped it with a 22\u201310 victory over Clemson in the Pinstripe Bowl on Dec. 27, 2025.<\/p>\n

James Franklin began the season as head coach but was dismissed on\u00a0Oct. 12, 2025, after a 3\u20133 start, with Terry Smith serving as interim head coach for the remainder of the year.<\/p>\n

Following a national search, Penn State hired\u00a0Matt Campbell\u00a0as its 17th head coach on\u00a0Dec. 5, 2025, bringing him over from Iowa State, where he spent a decade building the program into a Big 12 contender.<\/p>\n

However, as of Saturday, 247Sports lists\u00a047 outgoing transfers<\/a>\u00a0from Penn State in the 2026 portal window, one of the largest exoduses in FBS this cycle.<\/p>\n

The latest addition to that list was freshman running back\u00a0Tikey Hayes, who entered the portal on\u00a0Jan. 10, 2026, a move that drew criticism after he had publicly stated earlier in the week that he planned to return for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

\"Penn<\/p>\n

Penn State Nittany Lions running back Tikey Hayes (23) leaps over cornerback Daryus Dixson (5) | Matthew O’Haren-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Hayes, a former four-star recruit and 2025 enrollee from Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, saw limited opportunity in his first year with the program, logging just three carries for 18 yards while appearing sparingly during the season.<\/p>\n

Beyond Hayes, 247Sports lists several notable departures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Quarterback\u00a0Ethan Grunkemeyer, who stepped in for starter Drew Allar following his season-ending ankle injury in October and appeared in 10 games as a true freshman, entered the portal alongside sophomore\u00a0Luke Reynolds, the team\u2019s leading tight end. Both Grunkemeyer and Reynolds followed Franklin to Virginia Tech.<\/p>\n

The losses extend to the defensive side of the ball as well. Leading tackler\u00a0Amare Campbell\u00a0(103 total tackles) committed to Tennessee, junior cornerback and former five-star recruit\u00a0A.J. Harris\u00a0transferred to Indiana, and freshman\u00a0Chaz Coleman, the No. 1-ranked edge rusher in the transfer portal, also signed with Tennessee.<\/p>\n

During his tenure at Iowa State, Campbell\u00a0earned a reputation for elite player development, staff construction, and identifying undervalued transfer talent, factors that provide optimism he can mitigate some of the damage caused by the mass departures.<\/p>\n

Already, Campbell\u2019s staff has moved aggressively to replenish the roster, with\u00a036 incoming transfers\u00a0currently listed, including several former Cyclones, most notably starting quarterback\u00a0Rocco Becht, running back\u00a0Carson Hansen, and wide receivers\u00a0Brett Eskildsen\u00a0and\u00a0Chase Sowell.<\/p>\n

Still, the departure of nearly 50 players represents one of the largest outgoing transfer totals in college football this cycle, presenting a significant early challenge for a first-year head coach tasked with engineering a rapid turnaround.<\/p>\n

Read More at College Football HQ$2.2 million QB named No. 3 quarterback in college football transfer portal<\/a>No. 1 IOL prospect heavily linked to seven college football programs<\/a>$2.5 million QB changes LinkedIn profile after CFP national championship<\/a>All-conference QB named most underrated quarterback available in transfer portal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"College football\u2019s 2025 season produced surprise collapses and underperformance from several blue-blood programs, from top-ranked Texas and Heisman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-427851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}