2025 BYU Football Transfer Portal Tracker

The last couple of years have seen NIL and the transfer portal dramatically reshape the college football landscape. One of the clearest manifestations of that reshaping is that as a result of a preliminary NCAA settlement, each FBS football program will now be able to draw from a certain amount of its revenue to directly compensate its players. It goes without saying that this is a seismic change—a stunning final abandonment of the veneer of "amateurism" to which the NCAA clung for so many years. FBS football players are now university employees.

An interesting direct effect of this sweeping change is that FBS roster sizes will decrease significantly. In the past, FBS programs have been allowed rosters of up to 123 players—85 on scholarship, and the rest as walk-ons. Beginning with the 2025 season, though, the concept of a walk-on will functionally cease to exist. Instead, all FBS rosters will be hard-capped at 105 players, all of whom will be eligible for at least some compensation.

This, in turn, is going to have a dramatic downstream effect in the transfer portal. Around 18 players are about to be cut from every single FBS team in America—and the vast majority of them will be entering the portal. In other words, expect a glut of outgoing transfers from BYU and everywhere else. I'll track those departures, and the ensuing arrivals, on this page. As always, please DM me @JFloyd314 on Twitter if I've missed anyone.

Departures

This particular farewell is unfortunate, and brings an end to a somewhat head-scratching situation. Bowers was a coveted recruit out of high school in the class of 2023—a 4-star talent who turned down the likes of Alabama, Oregon, Texas, LSU, Auburn, Ole Miss, Baylor, and Florida State (among many others) to sign with BYU. And then...he disappeared. After redshirting his freshman season in 2023, he didn't see the field in a single game this year—in fact, he never even appeared on a gameday roster, meaning that he was never higher than 5th on the tight end depth chart. It's unclear why Bowers didn't make it into a game in two seasons after being such a highly-anticipated recruit, but I certainly hope that he can find a team that will help him overcome whatever issues he's experienced here and live up to his massive potential.

I really thought this might be Miles Davis's year—he's been on the roster since 2020 (yet still has eligibility left thanks to the COVID year), but has never been able to stay healthy long enough to make an impact. He has occasionally shown flashes—the Wyoming game in 2022 was a notable instance—that have reminded fans of his dazzling speed and athleticism, but he always seems to end up hurt in the end. He was finally fully healthy at the start of this season, but it was too late. Aaron Roderick and Harvey Unga opted for a three-headed rushing attack featuring LJ Martin, Hinckley Ropati, and Jake Retzlaff, and that just didn't leave any room for Davis to get touches. He had a couple big plays early in the season—his huge 40-yard burst against SMU set up the game-winning field goal, and he caught a touchdown on a gorgeous wheel route against Baylor—but as the Cougars' running back rotation solidified with Martin returning from injury, Davis's playing time dwindled to nothing almost immediately. I don't blame him for transferring at all—let him have the chance to be featured in an offense before his eligibility runs out.

After putting up surprising numbers in 2022, including big performances against Oregon, Utah State, Notre Dame, and Arkansas, Kody Epps looked like he might be the WR1 of the future at BYU. Then, he sent Cougar fans into a tailspin of panic when his entry into the transfer portal was leaked, only for him to immediately withdraw and stay with the team. Unfortunately, he probably would have been better served by transferring. Similar to classmate Miles Davis, Epps has been hit by a barrage of injuries since the 2023 offseason. He missed several games in 2023, and even when he did play, it was clear that his speed wasn't what it had been and his production was extremely limited. This year was more of the same—Epps wasn't on the field a whole lot, and when he was, he seldom made an impact. Kody Epps and Miles Davis—two 2020 recruits, two dynamic offensive playmakers at their best, and two of the biggest what-ifs of the Kalani Sitake era.

Another 2020 recruit who saw his BYU career derailed by injuries (sensing a pattern here?), Micah Harper missed the entirety of the 2021 season after getting hurt in the offseason. He was healthy and ready to go for 2022, and after working his way into the rotation over the first four games, he emerged as possibly BYU's best safety by season's end—he certainly at least seemed like the safety with the most potential, and I even named him BYU's 'Inspirational Player of the Year'. Unfortunately, a combination of injuries and poor play kept him off the field almost entirely in 2023—his one and only start was an absolutely miserable performance against Texas. He worked his way back into the rotation again for this season and appeared in a few of the Cougars' early games, including a nice 5-tackle showing against Kansas State, but he had basically played himself out of the rotation by the UCF game and additional injury struggles have kept him from playing much since. We haven't really seen Harper fully healthy since the bowl game back in 2022, and I'll be very curious to see what he does on his new team if he can finally get his body right.

Havea takes the prize as the first BYU player to announce his portal entry after the portal officially opened on December 9. He's a true freshman defensive lineman out of Provo High, and was ranked as the 18th best player in Utah by 247Sports in the class of 2024. However, he received very little recruiting attention, with BYU being his only P4 offer. He recorded only a single tackle this season, in the Wyoming game, and wasn't listed on gameday rosters at all by the end of the season.

This one is mildly surprising. Dalton is the younger brother of former BYU long snapper Austin Riggs, who transferred to Rutgers after last season specifically to give Dalton the starting role. Riggs was the starter throughout this season, and would presumably have remained so over the next two years if he had stayed. I'm not sure what could have prompted a season-long starter in BYU's incredibly successful special teams unit to transfer, but his departure leaves BYU's long snapper position wide open.

This one stings a little. Crew Wakley was a walk-on this year, but established himself as one of the best defensive backs on the team. His game-saving interception against Baylor was one of the defensive highlights of the season, and he and Tanner Wall anchored what had been expected to be a questionable safeties room, turning it into one of the strengths of the defense. Wakley will probably get a nice NIL deal in the portal, but a BYU defensive backfield that will be low on experience next year could really have used him.

There's not a whole lot to say about this one. West was a true freshman walk-on this season who, as far as I can tell, was unstarred by the major recruiting services and never appeared on a gameday roster. He was probably a victim of NCAA-mandated roster cuts.