How do teams prep for the transfer portal? A deep dive into the process with a Power Four personnel director

Things can change fast in and around the transfer portal.

Early in November, CBS Sports sat down with staff members at TCU and North Texas to get a sense of how Power Four and Group of Five teams prepare for the portal. At the time, the Mean Green and the Horned Frogs were in the middle of conference championship game push. But the Horned Frogs were deep into portal prep while the Mean Green were still in the thick of finishing up their high school class.

In the time since, North Texas head coach Eric Morris took the Oklahoma State job and TCU, within the last few days, saw its starting quarterback Josh Hoover enter the transfer portal.

Said TCU director of player personnel Tyler Olker in early November: "It really is a week-to-week evaluation."

Given that the North Texas personnel staff is no longer in Denton and is preparing for the portal in a different context, we're narrowing the focus of this piece to how TCU preps for the portal.

It's a process that started months ago and involves dozens of people in an effort to be prepared as possible when something like the Hoover situation pops up -- and yes, the Horned Frog already had portal targets in mind when Hoover decided to leave, per sources.

With two weeks before the transfer portal officially opens on Jan. 2, below is a Q&A with Olker about TCU's process. Sonny Dykes and his staff, dating back to his time at SMU, have been as successful as anyone at landing quality portal classes. This is how the Horned Frogs approach that process in 2025, an era where teams are balancing a new calendar -- a single window versus two -- the realities of revenue sharing and a space that's more than ever controlled by agents.

Note: This Q&A has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity

How transfer portal prep begins

CBS: When does portal preparation begin and what does it look like?

Olker: "Within the last couple of weeks. It's self-scout. You're not going to just jump in the portal and say, 'We need to go get X, Y and Z or we're just going to take best available.' You have to know what your needs are. For us, we do a lot of a lot of self-scout through fall camp and weekly, so we have a good grasp of what our needs are going to be.

"We're always doing advanced scouting throughout the season. So, we're already kind of doing some portal scouting week by week of our own roster and of our opponent. But we've really started to kind of hone in on advanced portal scouting guys from our region, guys from smaller schools, guys that we're playing. But that's over the last couple weeks."

CBS: What does that self-scouting process look like?

Olker: "You have to have really good synergy with your coaching staff, with your support staff. Everybody has to kind of be on the same page in terms of communication that's going on within the building. Who's doing well, who's progressing, who's developing, obviously, who they think might leave. You're getting bits and pieces from everywhere around the building, and then you kind of have to bring it back together and say, 'Okay, based on X, Y and Z we need to be prepared for so and so to leave.' I don't think it's any one place, but I think it's kind of a day-to-day evaluation.

"Guys can progress from the bye week until the end of the season. What we think right now might change in a couple of weeks. It really is a week-to-week evaluation."

CBS: Do you have an example of a player going in the portal in the past you weren't expecting and how they impacted your board?

Olker: "(All-conference safety) Jamel Johnson gets in the portal (last year), or had talked about it, and came right back. Jonathan Bax same thing. Didn't really think he'd go in, he went in, saw what his opportunities were and came back. It made him realize the best situation is here.

"Jamel we had just had a coordinator change. There was some uniqueness to that as well. He wanted to go somewhere and play. His opportunities came up, he didn't like them, and he was a good enough human being that we wanted to bring him back.

"You go from looking for one, then he comes back and you're done. There's some nuance."

CBS: How does the lack of a spring portal window impact how you prepare?

Olker: "You have to make decisions quicker. We've been talking about that. Developmental guys where you like to go through the spring, see how they progress and develop before maybe taking a transfer, you have to make that decision now. So, that might now be your bowl prep or your last few weeks of the season. You need to see X, Y and Z things out of (your young players). But decisions are going to have to be made earlier than they have been in the past. You don't have that safety net to continue to evaluate."

CBS: How do you balance retention and development with portal acquisitions?

Olker: "We're always going to be in the portal, but we don't want to be in the portal near as much as we probably have been. We've taken some really good high school classes the last few years, and we need to let those guys develop. I think anytime you just take a transfer, you're putting kind of a development or a progress stopper in front of some high school kids. We're kind of at the point now where we're going to let these high school kids grow into a role and let them develop. So, we're always going to look to retain our guys before we just jump in the portal to take to take."

Revenue share and assigning value

CBS: How do you look at rev share payments? Do y'all slot players?

Olker: "Just like most people would, I'd assume, we do have slot values for each position -- starter, backup, you know, third string, all that stuff. We try to shoot for that. It's kind of a fluid number. I mean, obviously there are guidelines and things you want to work through and work towards, but it can be manipulated, both having to go over or saving and going under."

CBS: In this era when you can pay players, how often (if at all) do you lose players you actually want to keep?

Olker: "We've had guys that have been, we'll call it like attempted poached from bigger schools, so to speak. We've lost some and we've retained some. I think everybody has a value, and so you have to, kind of know what your stopping point is. I will say this: The guys that we've wanted to keep and retain, we've been able to do so, and the guys that we didn't, so to speak, aren't here."

CBS: When thinking about your portal needs in an era with no spring window, how do you consider high school signees into your two-deep and roster projections?

Olker: "We're never going to project a high school player is going to come in and start. We try to keep them at baseline, and know they'll be developmental and hope they come in and surprise us. There are guys we know can contribute as freshmen. But we never try to project that. We'd rather them come in and shock us that they do better."

CBS: When do rev share negotiations begin and when do those take place?

Olker: "We're gonna utilize December. There'll be some stuff obviously earlier. We've sat down and had initial meetings as a support staff. We'll call it to put some projections on where we think these negotiations will go. We know that the numbers that we have set versus what they may ask for are probably going to differ. So there's going to be some back and forth that we'll have to clarify on. But that stuff will kind of hopefully hash out and be done with before the portal opens. But then we'll also kind of know too, if things aren't going well from a negotiation standpoint, we'll know we need to either replace or, you know, find somebody to move on from."

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Putting together a transfer portal big board

CBS: When do you start building out your portal board?

Olker: "We're shooting for Week 6, Week 7. It's kind of just like high school kids, right? You got to let these guys play and build up film, snaps, all that stuff, experience throughout the season. If you're watching after Week 1, Week 2, Week 3 it's probably not enough to make a decision on. The deeper into the season you go, the more data and information you're going to have."

CBS: Your high school is very heavily Texas-based. Do you think about portal acquisition the same way? 

Olker: "We've got some guys that fall outside of our boundaries like (Idaho wide receiver transfer) Jordan Dwyers. There's always guys like that. But the majority of the time, we're going to start just like we do in high school here at TCU, looking at guys that are from Texas, from Louisiana and Oklahoma, the same footprint we kind of recruit our high school guys from. Then we'll kind of just grow outwardly. (We're) always looking for connections to TCU to Texas."

CBS: Do you evaluate everyone ahead of time or are there ways you narrow the field?

Olker: "You're starting with guys that have experience. Obviously, if you're going into the portal, for the most part, you're looking for guys that have experience. … We're starting with that on our board. Then you kind of take guys … like, OK, this coach got fired. You go through their roster. (Do) they have anybody on roster that has connection? Connections to us, or that are big time players, so to speak. Then you kind of add them to the board, and that's just kind of another layer of people that you evaluate. I don't think you can project who's leaving unless there's some news out there. You have to cast a wide net and know you have a bunch of evaluations done when guys hit the portal."

CBS: How early do agents reach out with their potential portal player lists?

Olker: "Drastically early. Have had agents reach out and kind of just (say), 'Hey, here's a list of people that we represent. Here's guys that we think are going to get in the portal.' (You) kind of (get) hit with a little bit of everything. It's like when guys are telling you they may hit the portal -- they may not. (The agents) don't really know (at that point) either, I don't think. They're kind of projecting and just kind of putting out their list."

CBS: Ahead of a portal cycle how do you think about balancing your salary cap and determining if the numbers players and agents are asking for are real?

Olker: "There's really not a great way to do it. A lot of what we do is hearsay, because there's not a lot of public information and data. We have some data that we've attained just through talking with people, and some ballpark ranges, some percentiles and stuff. But there's really not a great way to say (that) so and so is worth X. So, we have to kind of work within our confines and number ranges that we've set. If they're outside of those parameters based on whatever their experience may be, you know, you either up it or move on."

CBS: How do you go about vetting potential portal players?

Olker; "You're just trying to reach out to anybody you may know on staff of their previous school, or previous schools, plural. Because we are so regionally based, a good chunk of these guys we know their high school coaches or we recruited them in the past, so there's already a baseline knowledge of the player. That's not everybody, by any means, but you're just trying to talk to whomever you can that has touched this kid within the last year and a half, two years."

The evaluation process

CBS: What do people not understand about what goes into getting ready for a portal cycle?

Olker: "How much prep goes into it. … You don't always know what your needs are, so just how many guys you have to watch. Like, you may need a starter. That's kind of like its own criteria of player. You may need a depth guy. There's thousands of depth guys out there. You could be looking for certain nuanced things. This is just an example: A high school kid gets injured here, right? He might medical redshirt. Now you may be looking for a tweener, somebody that's like a sophomore or a junior. So, you might be looking for somebody that went off to a Power (Four) school and hasn't necessarily played or wants to come back home. There's just all these little, like, pockets and windows and little nuanced things that could pop up."

CBS: How big is your personnel staff in terms of portal prep?

Olker: "We have four assistant DPPs, myself and (assistant AD for player personnel) Jeff Jordan, that are all evaluating, so six. Jeff is over the top. Once the board is solidified. he'll come in and oversee and bridge the gap between us and coach."

CBS: How many players have y'all evaluated so far?

Olker: "Between 500 and 1,000. I've watched everyone from Power Four players to NAIA players."

CBS: How long does an evaluation take?

Olker: "It can take anywhere from five minutes to 30 minutes.

"If you're evaluating kids as they hit the portal, you're probably going to be a little less in depth. And it's really like: 'Yes, this kid can do it or no, he can't.' I think on the front end, if you're pre-portal scouting, you're probably spending a little more time looking through those guys, because you have the time."

CBS: Do the majority of your portal takes come from the players you pre-scouted?

Olker: "Of the guys we pre-scouted, we hit somewhere in like the 80% range in terms of we put an eval on a kid, he went into the portal and we took him."

CBS: How much faster does that pre-scouting allow you to move in the portal?

Olker: "Now it's going to be even quicker, because the portal window is shorter. Every year the portal window has gotten smaller and smaller. … You want to try and get ahead as much as possible."

CBS: What would it be like if you waited until the portal to open to actually scout guys?

Olker: "Chaos. I don't know if you could legitimately sustain doing that. There are too many guys. It happens to quickly. It's not just realistic. Elimination is just as good as finding. We say that with high school kids, too. We know we're not looking for this, or this guy doesn't meet our snap criteria, taking these guys off our plate and eliminating as much as possible leaves us with a condensed view of guys we're evaluating."

CBS: How often do y'all hear players will enter the portal ahead of time and they don't actually jump?

Olker: "Not often. If someone is telling you, it means the kid is thinking about it."

Power Four vs. Group of Five

CBS: How does your process compare to a Group of Five school?

Olker: "I think that we'd have more resources and we're able to do it probably earlier. When I say resources, I really just mean eyes. We have five of us, obviously, that are helping with this portal scouting process, but we also have students, and we have interns and volunteers and people that are kind of putting first-level layers of evaluations in. I would imagine we're able to designate things earlier than probably a G5 would. On the flip side of that that: A (6-5) probably knows you're not going to get some of the top guys. So, from that regard, some of those guys you're eliminating off the top, and if you're going to eliminate from the bottom of guys who haven't played, your group to evaluate is probably even smaller.

"You're also projecting. You might have to go back and look at high school film if you're taking a P4 dropping down to a G5. We're not watching high school film at all.

"So, there's probably some similarities. I think we're able to just get to our process quicker than they are throughout the season, because I'm sure too they're probably trying to finish out their high school classes. Whereas we're working on one or two guys, but we're not in the thick of it."

CBS: How would you describe the resource gap in college football in terms of the P4 versus the G5?

Olker: "I don't think it really makes sense, right? Like, the resources that we have, the resources the G5 has and the resources that maybe, like a major Power (Four) have are all drastically different, But we're all working towards a national championship that we all compete for. And so, wouldn't you make the excuse they have a competitive advantage over us, like a major Power (Four) and we have a resource advantage over a G5? So how is that competitive equity? I don't think it makes a whole bunch of sense.

"Do we have resources? Do we max rev share? Yes. It's just all the above the cap stuff."