After a disappointing end to the season, Rutgers football is gearing up for the transfer portal to plug some of the gaps on the roster. Four Scarlet Knights have already declared that they will enter the transfer portal. DE Jordan Walker, RB Samuel Brown V, RB CJ Campbell, and WR/KR Dane Partridge. This article will operate under the assumption that the current roster will remain what it is (it, most likely, will not) and will address the positions that need the most help currently.
No.1 Interior Defensive Line
Rutgers’ interior
defensive line was one of the worst units on the team last year. To add on top of that, they are losing many of their better players in this position to graduation. Doug Blue-Eli should be eligible to come back after missing the regular season, but that still leaves Rutgers without a quality starter at one DT position, and it leaves them without quality reserves overall. The Knights have not recruited well on the interior recently, and don’t have many hot prospects who should be ready to go for next season, besides maybe Braxton Kyle in a rotational role.
In addition to all of that, Rutgers’ run defense was extremely poor in 2025, in large part due to the poor defensive line play. They should focus on this area in the portal, as it is their largest concern on defense heading into 2026
No.2 Defensive Back
Rutgers is losing a lot of senior production in this area. Players like Safety Jett Elad, Cam Miller, and others are leaving the program due to eligibility issues. On top of that, this position was one of the weakest on the team in 2025, especially early on, as they were gashed for huge yardage repeatedly and were caught simply lining up wrong several times throughout the season. The changing of the staff on defense should help to remedy these issues, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t need to find capable replacements to fill in the gaps here.
No.3 Linebacker
Rutgers has several capable prospects coming up the pipeline for this position. The only issue is that they are still very young, and the Knights are losing veteran linebacker Dariel Djabome this offseason. Players like Sam Robinson, Abram Wright, and Moses Walker have experience at the college level, but none of them have impressed so far. In addition, Walker and Wright have also shown that they have issues staying on the field at times. The Knights will need to find a capable linebacker in the portal to fill out this rotation.
No.4 Defensive End/Edge
This is another position that has promising prospects coming up the pipeline; however, they are likely still not ready to take the full-time role. They have also had decent depth pieces/rotational pieces here this season, like Farrell Gnago and Djibril Abdou-Rahman. The biggest reason why this is a transfer portal need is that starters Eric O’Neill and Bradley Weaver, along with rotational piece Jordan Walker, are all leaving the program.
If Rutgers can land at least one solid starter at this position, they should be set because of all the talent they have coming up.
No.5 Tight End
Yes, Rutgers did not use their Tight Ends to their fullest potential last season. However, that doesn’t change the fact that their highest producers at the position, Kenny Fletcher and Colin Weber, are leaving, and they need to replace their production. After Fletcher and Weber, all of the remaining Tight Ends on the team caught two passes this last season.
No.6 Interior Offensive Line
Rutgers is likely set at the offensive tackle position with Taj White returning and players like Ryder Langsdale and Dantae Chin coming back from injury. However, they are still losing guard Bryan Felter and center Gus Zilinskas on the interior. They do have a bunch of prospects coming up the pipeline here, and they did make several portal additions last season to help out here, so they likely don’t need a lot of pickups here. One solid pickup here should be more than enough to help them construct a solid offensive line.
