For the past two weeks, the story that has captivated Texas Tech football fans has been the Red Raiders' wild spending spree in the transfer portal. In fact, the program's 2025 transfer portal class is ranked No. 1 in the country by 247Sports.com at the time of this article's publishing.
Currently, Tech has signed 17 players from the portal adding help to every position group on the roster except linebacker. In all, head coach Joey McGuire and Co. have added seven 4-star transfers according to 247sports, tied with LSU for the most 4-star additions in the county.
Thus, it is easy to understand why expectations are through the roof for the Red Raiders in 2025. Fans in West Texas and around Raiderland are already dreaming about what next fall could hold in store for a program that has been a non-factor on the national scene for over a decade and a half.
But does transfer portal success typically lead to huge results on the field? That's a question that is asked every year as people debate whether a roster that is built in large part through the portal can gel quickly enough to compete for conference titles and more.
One notable portal experiment took place this fall, in fact. In the 2024 recruiting cycle, Ole Miss had the No. 1 transfer class in the country thanks to adding an astonishing 28 transfers.
In that group, the Rebels had seven four-star signees and even one five-star. However, that wasn't good enough to get head coach Lane Kiffin and his team into the 12-team College Football Playoff this year. The Rebels managed to be a playoff contender all season but with a 9-3 regular-season record, they missed out on their goal of a playoff bid.
As for the other teams with a top-10 transfer class in 2024, only Oregon (No. 2 class in 2024), Texas (No. 5 class), and Ohio State (No. 9 class) made it into this season's playoff field. What's more, Ohio State took only seven transfers so the bulk of their team was built through traditional means. What's more, Oregon was the only one of the five conference champions in the playoff that had a top-10 transfer class.
In the Big 12, the results were also interesting. The two teams that played in the conference title game, Arizona State and Iowa State, had just the No. 4 and the No. 16 transfer classes in the conference respectively in 2024.
In the 2023 recruiting cycle, there is more evidence that a top transfer class doesn't guarantee anything. That was the year when Deion Sanders took over as head coach at Colorado and signed the nation's No. 1 transfer class by bringing in a whopping 52 transfers. However, the Buffaloes went just 4-8 overall and 1-8 in the PAC-12 that season.
What's more, the only team to win a conference championship with a top-10 transfer class in the 2023 recruiting cycle was Florida State (which had the No. 6 transfer class with 12 signees) and they weren't even able to qualify for the four-team College Football Playoff.
In 2022, the only team to make the College Football Playoff after bringing in a top-10 transfer class was Alabama and given that the Crimson Tide signed only five transfers that year, it is hard to credit their success to their transfer haul. Meanwhile, the team that signed the top transfer class that year, USC, didn't win their conference, didn't win their bowl game, and didn't finish in the top 10 despite having the Heisman Trophy Winner, Caleb Williams, as part of its transfer class.
We could continue but the point is clear. Transfer portal success is no guarantee that championships are imminent.
The intention here isn't to try to douse Texas Tech fans' excitement. Nor is it to criticize Tech's strategy. After all, the Red Raiders needed to fortify their roster by any means possible, and being active in the portal was a must.
There's no doubt that the roster McGuire has put together for next season is light-years ahead of the 2024 roster. But Texas Tech still has to earn its success on the field. That's because success on paper in December means less than some might think once the fall rolls around.