The path to winning in college football continues to become clearer by the season. You need resources (money….lots of it) to make your team better and older in the transfer portal on a yearly basis. And as teams constantly look to level up their talent at every position across their rosters, that means players finding themselves outside the rotation as depth charts take shape. Coaches have to do their best to recruit over players and players have to show why they’re irreplaceable on the field. By
no means is that a new concept with the transfer portal; it’s been part of the fabric of recruiting forever.
There are plenty of stories where it does makes sense to want to hate the portal; that’s been made pretty clear at this point. By no means is it a perfect operation. If we’re keeping it real, it’s laughably bad in so many areas. That’s a conversation for another time, though.
Because just days after the one of the most hilariously unethical portal situations unfolded with Miami luring now former-Duke quarterback Darian Mensah into the portal to join the Hurricanes (despite Mensah signing a two-year deal with the Blue Devils a year ago) we’ve now been given what might legitimately be the best example you can find today of a player remaining as loyal to a school as possible, while still looking out for himself and wanting to be on the field in reasonable fashion — the kind of situation the portal was intended for when introduced in 2018.
That example being Trey McDonald.
It was announced Wednesday that McDonald, who’d been in the transfer portal since late December after four years with the ‘Hoos, was making a move and transferring to Memphis for the 2026 season.
While on the surface, it would be easy for anyone to look at another player leaving his or her school and sit back saying something along the lines of “everyone’s just in it for the money,” “these kids have no loyalty,” or “they all leave when things get tough” which you could say is true for numerous transfers around the country, likening McDonald leaving for Memphis to any of those generalizations is way off the mark.
McDonald came to Charlottesville out of high school as a three-star recruit from the state of Tennessee as part of UVA’s 2022 class. After originally committing to Bronco Mendenhall, he remained committed to Tony Elliott and the new staff. He appeared in only a handful of games as a freshman and saw time mostly on special teams as a sophomore in 2023. In 2024, with starters Kam Robinson and James Jackson both dealing with injuries at various times, McDonald played a heavy number of snaps, making 57 tackles while playing in all 12 games, starting in five.
After that ‘24 season where the ’Hoos limped to a 5-7 finish, Tony Elliott and staff hit the portal hard at every position, looking to drastically improve going into this latest season. And if you rewind back to that time, a former three-star recruit, with a number of snaps under his belt for a power conference team, could have easily jumped into the portal and found a new home somewhere else, given the returning talent and experience UVA had at the linebacker spots. But McDonald elected to stay put, and again, played primarily on special teams throughout UVA’s historic 11-3 season.
You would be hard pressed to find a more selfless thing for a player to do than to stick around and play a not-so-glamourous, yet pivotal role for a team after being a huge part of a team’s defensive rotation a year ago. We don’t hear about situations like that often in the modern era of college football, but they’re the best examples to point towards when talking about how the portal can be a great asset for all parties involved. All parties in this case being the player, the program, and fans.
UVA continued to bolster its roster for next season during the portal window and is now in position to put together another promising year in ’26, which is something UVA would struggle to muster if not for the ability to build through the portal. That’s obviously a great thing. Fans can also appreciate a player coming back to give it his best, and not dip out, for what ended up being an amazing season for the school, regardless of role. And McDonald gets to finish his college career at a school in his home state where he’s likely to see more playing time. I don’t know how anyone could throw stones at a player for maneuvering a situation like that.
It’s as close to a true win-win-win that you can find in today’s college football. It’s what the portal was made for. Players who give what they can, but still want to find regular playing time. Guys like McDonald deserve to be celebrated as much, if not more, compared to situations like Mensah’s and others deserve to be criticized.
The portal is far from perfect, but its initial purpose isn’t dead yet.
