ATHENS — In a 24-hour period, cornerback Julian Humphrey announced he was leaving and then staying at Georgia. In changing his decision to leave the school via the NCAA’s transfer portal and speaking of the subsequent recruitment, a number of issues were raised on how the system is being abused.
On Tuesday night, Humphrey, the redshirt freshman from Webster, Texas, announced that he was entering the transfer portal. Then, after talking it over with Georgia coaches and admittedly entertaining monetary offers from other teams throughout the day Wednesday, Humphrey announced he was remaining with the Bulldogs. He granted the fan site DawgsHQ.com an exclusive interview about it.
“The more I thought about this, why would I leave Georgia for a couple more bucks?” Humphrey told DawgsHQ’s Rusty Mansell. “I want to be there. It is Georgia, and that is one of the top premier programs in the country.”
Late Wednesday afternoon, Humphrey posted a message on Twitter saying, “thank you to everyone. #Godawgs.” It included a picture of him and his parents posing with UGA co-defensive coordinator Will Muschamp and new defensive backs coach Donte Williams.
Humphrey told DawgsHQ that “pretty much every team in country” was “blowing up his phone” after he made his intent to transfer known. However, Humphrey also shared that “he never actually went through with it and his name did not get entered” into the portal.
There are a couple of problems with that. One, it’s not compliant with NCAA rules. A college athlete must provide written notification to the school’s compliance office of his or her intent to transfer. Such a request cannot be refused but the school has 48 hours to comply with it. The portal’s winter window closed at midnight Wednesday.
Two, other schools are not permitted to contact another program’s athlete until their name officially is entered into the portal (the slang name used for the NCAA’s private and secured database). Humphrey told DawgsHQ that he never followed through with that process.
Accordingly, every representative of schools other than UGA that contacted Humphrey about transferring over the past several days was in violation of NCAA rules. That would include individuals associated with third-party collectives, as they directly represent schools’ interests. Texas A&M, which is located nearest Humphrey’s Houston-area hometown, was the school reported to be most vigorous in its pursuit of the defensive back, according to DawgsHQ.
In earlier real-time accounts of Humphrey’s drama, DawgsHQ reported that the second-year student already had been promised on off-campus apartment by UGA before he made his portal announcement. What kind of final agreement the player reached with the Bulldogs is unknown. Like most NCAA institutions, Georgia declines to share NIL compensation information with the public, citing federal privacy laws designed to protect college students. On3.com’s “NIL Valuation Index” projects Humphrey’s annual value at $211,000.
In the end, Humphrey maintained it wasn’t about money.
“I know with a great year at Georgia, I can get to the NFL,” he told DawgsHQ. “… I felt like, in the end, why leave that and go somewhere else?”
As the Bulldogs’ reaction indicated, it was important to them to keep Humphrey in Athens. Earlier this week, Georgia lost star cornerback Kamari Lassiter to early entry into the NFL draft. Meanwhile, fellow cornerbacks Nyland Green and AJ Harris entered the portal in December.
A week before the Orange Bowl, freshman cornerback Daniel Harris also announced he was entering the portal. However, he showed up with the Bulldogs in Miami, coach Kirby Smart said Harris never entered the portal and Harris played extensively Georgia’s 63-3 win over FSU.
As for the 6-foot, 190-pound Humphrey, he saw a sharp increase in playing the second half of the season before sustaining a shoulder injury in Game 9 against Ole Miss that sidelined him for the remainder of the season. Playing a total of 168 snaps in nine games, he finished with 11 tackles and one pass breakup.
With Humphrey apparently back in the fold, the Bulldogs stand at 20 players from the 2023 team who either have entered the portal or committed to play for other programs. Meanwhile, the 30-day, winter portal window closed Wednesday night. Another 15-day window will open May 15.
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