In the transfer portal, you win some and you lose some. Adding newcomers is trumpeted on social media while losing teammates triggers panic. That’s the state of the college game online with anxious fans and more impactfully on and off the playing surface for players and programs.
BYU is currently reshaping its men’s basketball roster with help from the portal. Head coach Kevin Young added former five-star point guard Rob Wright III from Baylor and he and his staff are working on a handful of other options.
The excitement surrounding the nation’s top recruit, AJ Dybantsa, who moved to Provo with his family last week, is not only attracting potential teammates, but it has also unprecedentedly launched the Cougars as high as No. 4 in some preseason polls.
As good as the future looks for BYU, Young’s roster took a few hits of its own. Reserve guards Dallin Hall (Virginia), Kanon Catchings (Georgia) and Elijah Crawford (TBD) all rightfully stepped into the portal in search of better circumstances.
Kalani Sitake, fresh off BYU’s 11-2 season and No. 13 national ranking, hit the portal to add a pair of needed starters — defensive tackle Keanu Tanuvasa and tight end Carsen Ryan. But last weekend, the portal hit back when two former starters announced their exits — Harrison Taggart and Keelan Marion.
Taggart transferred to BYU from Oregon in 2023 and finished second on the team last season with 69 tackles. The 6-foot-1, 230-pound linebacker was assumed to rejoin Jack Kelly and Isaiah Glasker and be among the best defensive trios in program history.
As a junior transfer from UConn, Marion earned All-America honors for BYU returning kickoffs, including two for touchdowns against Wyoming and Utah. At 6 feet and 195 pounds, Marion’s efforts to become a trusted target for Jake Retzlaff during spring practice earned high praise from the quarterback and staff.
However, just as an expanding waistline can lay waste to a once-fitted suit, players and programs change. Sometimes the issues can be fixed with minor alterations while other times there is nothing even the best tailor can do.
The reasons Tanuvasa and Ryan transferred in and why Taggart and Marion transferred out range from personal to professional but in each case, they sought something new and the mobility and finances surrounding today’s game makes it possible.
New NCAA roster limitations facing coaches, including Sitake, will keep additional pressure on who stays and who plays. The importing and exporting of players are only going to get more complicated.
Losing Taggart is a blow to Jay Hill’s defense, but BYU is deep at the linebacker position. Junior Siale Esera was already poised to challenge Taggart for the starting job. Replacing Marion may be a more difficult task.
With Darius Lassiter gone from last season and Chase Roberts healing from shoulder surgery, Marion caught a bulk of Retzlaff’s passes during spring practice. His absence opens the door for JoJo Phillips, Parker Kingston and Cody Hagen to expand their roles and possibly return kicks. Kingston is also the returning punt returner.
If he feels deficient at receiver, Sitake can always return to the source of the chaos — the transfer portal, where there are over 3,000 young men hoping to get more than what they had before.
Today’s environment for a coach is like walking into Mr. Mac in search of a suit. The goal is to find one that will fit today and, if needed, can be altered for tomorrow. The challenge is that these suits aren’t really for sale. They are for rent at an adjustable rate, which each individual suit can dictate — and the high-quality ones are expensive.
For a suit, this seems like a great time to be hanging on the rack, so long as there aren’t any flaws in the fabric. The risk they take is going unnoticed. These suits are empowered like never before with the freedom to swap closets whenever they choose. As a result, the comings and goings keep coming and going.
Without ownership, or in the NCAA’s case, without governing oversight, both the suitor and the suit, coach and player, are living in an ironic free-for-all. The long-term cost of the transfer portal on college sports is still unknown, but there will be one — there always is.
So far, even with a hit here and there, roster building in this brave new world has been kind to the Cougars. Basketball just reached the Sweet 16 and football tied for first place in the Big 12. Preseason projections for both teams will position them as contenders this fall and winter.
The spring transfer portal for football closes Friday. Players looking to enter have five more days to make their decisions. It all makes for quite a suit sale, but buyers beware, these outfits are empowered to create their own fit, charge their own fee and alter their future like never before.
In the plight of Tanuvasa and Ryan, BYU wins. The Cougars got what they needed and both will be on the field Aug. 30 against Portland State. In the adventures ahead for Taggart and Marion, where there will be plenty of new suitors, hopefully they will win too. In any case, for any program in this wild era of the transfer portal, there is one certainty — you get some and you lose some.
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.