The Tennessee football team is losing a key defensive player to the transfer portal as starting cornerback Rickey Gibson plans to enter in the spring. The first portal window closed back in late December, but there is a second window that is open briefly after spring practice. Gibson will enter when it is open again, and he will search for his new school. “BREAKING: Tennessee starting CB Rickey Gibson tells On3 he plans to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal this spring,” On3 said in a post. Rickey Gibson has spent his entire college career with the Tennessee football team, so this will be his first time in the transfer portal. He joined the program in 2023 and just finished up his sophomore year. As a freshman, Gibson racked up nine total tackles and one pass defended, and he took a nice leap during his sophomore season. This past year, Gibson finished with 32 total tackles, three passes defended and one forced fumble. Gibson has a lot of valuable experience with a high-level power four team, so he should get a lot of attention in the transfer portal. Transfer portal overview One of the biggest parts of the college football offseason is the transfer portal, and the festivities begin before the offseason actually starts. Teams that didn’t qualify for the postseason have entered their offseason, but there are a lot of teams that still have bowl games to play. The transfer portal opened up on December 9th, so it creates some issues for players that want to transfer but still have a season going. The transfer portal is a massive part of college football now, and there are definitely positives and negatives to it. One of the biggest issues that people have with it is the timing of the first window. It is open in early December so players can pick a new school and start the next semester there when January rolls around. However, it does create issues as we have already seen players this year on College Football Playoff teams have to miss out on the opportunity to participate in the CFP because of their transfer. On the flip side, the transfer portal gives teams a chance to completely rebuild their squad in just one offseason. New head coaches can come in and bring in a lot of experienced players from the jump, and it can make for a quick turnaround. Any team has hope in the offseason because of the transfer portal. The transfer portal opened up for the first time this season on December 9th and that first window stayed open until December 28th. This window is the main window where a lot of the action takes place, but the transfer portal will open again in the spring. From April 16th until April 25th, the transfer portal will be back open. That way, players can go through spring ball and have a better idea of what their upcoming season will look like. If they aren’t satisfied, they can leave. We even sometimes see players that transferred in the first window transfer again in the second window, sometimes back to their original school. The transfer portal is a crucial part of the offseason, and we will be hearing a lot about it from now until the end of the spring.