Former Center Grove standout Jackson Schott transferred to Indiana University last year after beginning his collegiate career at Ball State.
Submitted photo | Indiana Athletics
Deion Sanders’ over-the-top use of the transfer portal at Colorado might be an outlier, but “Coach Prime” is far from the only one in college football to make effective use of it as a means to reshape a roster.
Count Indiana University coach Tom Allen among the early adopters of the post-pandemic tool. The Hoosiers have been one of the more active participants within the portal, with their 31 incoming transfers this year among the most in the country.
(247sports.com had Indiana tied for fifth among Football Bowl Subdivision schools with 23 newcomers; that figure appears to only include scholarship players.)
Recruiting transfers is just part of doing business now in collegiate sports, and nearly every coach has hopped aboard the train to at least some extent. The Hoosiers added another staff member within the past year specifically to evaluate the portal.
“We’re still aggressive at high school (recruiting); that hasn’t changed,” Allen said. “We want that to be our foundation, no question about it … but the portal is part of what we do now and will continue to for each position group and the needs that we have.”
Jackson Schott wasn’t a part of this year’s massive influx, but he did come to Bloomington via the portal a year ago; the former Center Grove star spent his freshman year at Miami of Ohio before transferring to IU last year. He sat out the 2022 season as a redshirt, working with the Hoosiers’ scout team.
“Things didn’t go as I had planned them,” Schott said of his experience with the RedHawks in 2021, “so I hit the portal and then was in touch with coach Allen and (director of player personnel Ryan) Hansen about a preferred walk-on opportunity. I took it, and ever since then I’ve just been here working and trying to work my way up.”
Fellow ex-Trojan Tayven Jackson was a third-string quarterback as a Tennessee freshman last fall, completing three of his four passes for 37 yards and rushing for 10 yards and a touchdown. Despite the departure of starter Hendon Hooker — who finished fifth in Heisman Trophy balloting last season — seemingly opening up a path to more playing time with the Vols, Jackson entered the portal in January and announced his commitment to the Hoosiers just days later.
The move has worked out well. Jackson was named the Hoosiers’ starting quarterback last month.
He’s helped steer some of his former Center Grove teammates to Bloomington as well.
Daniel Weems rushed for 405 yards and five touchdowns in his lone season at Indiana Wesleyan last year, including a 134-yard effort at Olivet Nazarene in his second game. He also caught 16 passes for 82 yards and two more scores. But he logged just 17 carries over the Wildcats’ final three contests, and when Jackson committed to Allen and the Hoosiers, Weems opted to join him there.
“With (Jackson) leaving Tennessee and coming to IU, it kind of felt like that would be the best option for me, for my future,” Weems said. “He played a very big part in that.”
Meanwhile, it was another former Trojan and current Hoosier, redshirt sophomore linebacker Matt Hohlt, who made his sales pitch and convinced Center Grove grad Carl Biddings IV to come to IU.
Biddings had managed to get on the field last fall as a freshman defensive lineman at Louisville, recording his first collegiate tackle in an October upset win over then-No. 10 Wake Forest. But when Jeff Brohm was hired out of Purdue to be the Cardinals’ new head coach last December, Biddings decided that was his cue to leave.
“I’m not a big fan of the Purdue coaches,” Biddings said. “High school recruiting with Purdue didn’t really go my way, so I wanted a fair opportunity with coach Allen.”
(Coincidentally, Louisville matched Indiana’s transfer haul, also bringing in 23 new faces.)
It’s certainly not an accident that Allen has been drawn to Center Grove players recently. The Trojans have been a juggernaut under longtime coach Eric Moore, making it to the Class 6A title game each of the last four seasons and winning the last three. Adding players from a program of that caliber, the IU coach says, is often a priority.
“Coach Moore has done a phenomenal job,” Allen said, noting that he was coaching at Ben Davis when Moore arrived in 1999. “The thing that I always was impressed with their kids was the way they worked and how hard he worked them in the offseason. How their bodies, you could see a change from freshman, sophomore year to junior, senior year, and you knew the work that they put in. So getting young men from that program — that know how to work, expect to win and are well prepared … I love that mindset, love that mentality, so I love recruiting those kids from there and we want to continue getting as many as we can.”
Roman Purcell, who spent his senior year quarterbacking Indian Creek after previously attending Cathedral and Warren Central, has also landed in Bloomington.
It’s the fourth college team in as many years for Purcell, who redshirted at Army in 2020 before playing the 2021 season at Monroe College in New York City and spending last fall on the scout team at North Carolina A&T. He enjoyed his time in Carolina but wanted to be a bit closer to family. Purcell ultimately chose IU over Rutgers, another school that would have put him close to a home base (he was raised in New Jersey before coming to Indiana as a teenager).
“I went to high school out here,” Purcell said. “I do consider this a second home. I do have a little bit of family out here; a grandma and uncle are out here. … I really liked coach Allen in high school, but I just never swung that direction, so when I got the opportunity to actually come here, I was all for it.”
One big perk for all of the aforementioned players was the opportunity to change schools without having to sacrifice a year of eligibility. Now that the transfer rules have been altered, athletes have the same freedom of movement that coaches and administrators always enjoyed.
“Having the opportunity to play now instead of sitting out is really good for my ability to get better every day,” Biddings said. “Learning the plays faster. I don’t have to sit out, and I’m in the environment of football naturally, so it’s been good so far.”
“It’s extremely helpful,” Purcell agreed. “I’ve had a little bit of a nomadic experience in my career. Obviously, that was definitely not planned, but the ability to pursue the best opportunity that is available — so that you can be the best player that you can be, but also so you can help contribute to a team and help contribute to something greater.”
The benefits of that freedom and flexibility, though, aren’t limited to football.
“Before you could transfer and be eligible immediately, I feel like it was real hard for kids to tell what the school was really going to be like through recruiting and stuff,” Schott said. “So when they get there and it’s different, and they’re told one thing and the other’s happening, it can get confusing. … I feel like it just made it a lot easier for kids to go try it out, and if it wasn’t what you wanted, then you can go somewhere else. I feel like it’s really nice and a good idea for college sports.”
One that more and more young athletes — and coaches — are taking advantage of.
