The college football transfer portal officially closed on Jan. 16, but there’s still plenty of movement.
Although Jan. 16 was the last date players could officially enter their names into the portal, it wasn’t the deadline for them to actually make their decision.
As such, these past few days have seen several intriguing players make their transfer portal decisions.
These are the winners and losers since Jan 16.
College football transfer portal winners
Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy with the Indiana Hoosiers this year, and then he went on to lead the Hoosiers to their first national championship.
Mendoza took the college football world by storm, and he’s likely the No. 1 overall pick in this upcoming 2026 NFL Draft.
His brother, Alberto Mendoza, may not ever live up to that resume, but you have to wonder if there’s just something special in that Mendoza bloodline.
Alberto celebrated the Hoosiers’ national championship win and then promptly decided to commit to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.
The Younger Mendoza played in nine games this past season for Indiana in mop-up duty for his brother. He notched 286 yards and five touchdowns compared to one interception.
The Baylor Bears landed one of the most intriguing players in the transfer portal on Jan. 18 when former Florida Gators quarterback D.J. Lagway decided that he’s going to spend 2026 in Waco.
Lagway is a former five-star recruit and was ranked as the No. 1 quarterback in the 2024 class, according to 247Sports. He had a great freshman season at Florida when he became the starter in relief of an injured Graham Mertz, but his struggles in 2025 were one of the main reasons that Billy Napier ended up getting fired midseason.
Still, there’s a very talented quarterback somewhere in there with Lagway. Let’s see if Baylor head coach Dave Aranda can bring him back out.
The Wolverines have brought in a ton of new players via the transfer portal thanks to the hiring of Kyle Whittingham. Many of his old players from Utah decided to follow him to Ann Arbor, but few were bigger than Salesi Moa.
Moa is a 2026 recruit who had signed with Utah, but he entered the transfer portal to ultimately follow Whittingham just days after he actually enrolled in school.
A top recruit who can play wide receiver or cornerback, Moa is ranked as the No. 5 athlete in the 2026 class, according to the 247Sports Composite.
College football transfer portal losers
The Duke Blue Devils find themselves in a messy situation. Hours before the deadline closed, star quarterback Darian Mensah decided to enter the portal.
Now, Duke is suing Mensah, saying that he violated the terms of his NIL agreement “by “disclosing its monetary terms, seeking to license his NIL in football and to another collegiate institution, seeking his enrollment at another institution, initiating contact with admissions or athletics staff at another institution, failing to notify Duke University if he is contacted by another institution or its representatives, and/or acting in way that has now harmed his image and the image of Duke University by ignoring the terms and conditions of his contract.”
We’ve seen that the player tends to get the benefit of the doubt in these cases, so more likely than not, Duke is about to lose its star quarterback and likely some money as well.
The Florida State Seminoles had five players leave and commit elsewhere via the transfer portal over the past few days.
More concerning, though, is the fact that Mike Norvell’s transfer portal class is ranked just 24th in the country.
Norvell could have been fired this past season after going 2-10 in 2024 and 5-7 in 2025.
His portal production from this cycle can’t be encouraging.
Dan Lanning and the Oregon Ducks are going to be just fine, but right now, they have just the 25th-ranked transfer portal class in the country. Heck, Florida State is ranked higher.
Notably, the Ducks just lost tight end Vander Ploog to NC State. Ploog is a former four-star tight end who took a redshirt season in 2025, but he was a highly productive recruit and had plenty of potential in Lanning’s system.
Again, the Ducks will be fine, but that’s a transfer portal loss that stings.