Scott has followed South Carolina athletics for over 40 years and provides commentary from a fan perspective. He writes a weekly newsletter (this email) year-round and a column during football season that's published each Monday on GamecockCentral.com.
Scott Davis: Who Won the Window?
Today, the window officially closes.
You know which window I'm talking about. The college football transfer portal window – which opened just two short weeks ago on January 2 – is to be pushed down and firmly shut today after a frenzied, wild, unprecedented 14-day whirlwind.
Whether or not I'll recover anytime soon remains to be seen.
In the brief, controversial history of the transfer portal up to 2026, players had two periods in the winter and the spring in which they could turn to the program for which they currently played and say, "I just don't love you anymore."
But the NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, reduced that to a single two-week period in January during which players could switch jerseys and helmets. For reasons that remain unclear, this two-week stretch became known as "the transfer portal window," which made it sound vaguely like some sort of alternate dimension in a science fiction movie (and come to think of it, that's actually what the transfer portal window feels like as well).
May I admit that I'm happy the window is closing? The arctic blast of news, rumors, nuggets, comings and goings that has continually slipped through the window has frozen my brain into an icy sludge. I feel a draft, and I need to close this window before I catch a cold.
This was like high school recruiting season on steroids. No, this was recruiting if you injected recruiting with King Kong's DNA and enabled it to climb the Empire State Building.
Back in the golden days of recruiting, every football program welcomed in 20 or 25 high school seniors in a good year…and even that process felt like a tornado of activity.
But in the no-holds-barred world of the window, nearly every player on every 105-man roster across the sport might just be up for grabs. Key starters, young athletes with untapped potential, role-players, freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and even seniors with some sort of eligibility remaining – the window welcomes them all.
In Window World, up is down, black is white, and anything can happen at any time. Are you still alive out there?
Learning on the Fly
This was my first window.
And my inexperience showed: I looked, acted, and felt like a fan who didn't know what was happening. This was Shane Beamer's first window, your first window, everyone's first window.
I survived it, but barely. The daily news cycle felt like a tsunami, an avalanche, and an earthquake rolled into one: South Carolina hung onto some key players, and maintaining the status quo sometimes counts as a success story in Window World.
Unless it doesn't.
Because at other times, wholesale change amounted to a victory. The Gamecocks appeared to be trading in their entire offensive line for a new model…and that felt like a positive, right? It led one to wonder if in future windows, whenever you were overhauling a particular unit on the team that had struggled the previous season, you might just be able to press CTRL+ALT+DELETE on the entire room and start from scratch.
That appears to be what South Carolina just did with the O-line during this window.
The happenings were so breakneck and so vast that I found it impossible to keep up with what other programs were doing. A decade ago, it seemed like I knew who was succeeding during high school recruiting season.
Now? I had to fight off the urge to text fans of other teams and ask, "How's your window going?"
More than likely, they wouldn't have been able to give me a definitive answer anyway.
The window doesn't give up its secrets easily.
Are There Winners and Losers Here?
As Americans, we believe that we were granted the sovereign, God-given right to transform anything into a competition. Wasn't that part of the original Bill of Rights?
We took the mundane, dull process of high school 18-year-olds faxing in letters of intent and turned that into a cutthroat, high-dollar spectator sport. God only knows what we'll do with a target-rich environment like the window.
So, now that these bizarre two weeks have officially closed, it seems only natural for us to ask the eternal question.
Who won the window?
The definitive answer appears to be: Everybody.
From what I can tell, every program in America is being lauded for "doing some good things" in the window. Looks like LSU had a nice window. Ole Miss also had a solid window. Georgia? Good window!
Indiana somewhat inevitably owned the window. Virginia Tech? Nice little window! Kentucky? Not at all a terrible window!
And you know who I'm hearing made some surprising noise in the window? My South Carolina Gamecocks. The program seemed to have shored up its ailing offensive line, particularly through the addition of coveted N.C. State tackle Jacarrius Peak. The Gamecocks even benefited from a current O-linemen, Josiah Thompson, entering and then withdrawing his name from the portal.
In the David Lynch-like universe of Window World, having a player announce his departure followed by announcing his return before he actually left counts as a success story. If you're confused, just take the win and move on.
One person who unequivocally won the window was Arizona State quarterback Sam Leavitt, who parlayed one solid season and one injury-shortened season at Arizona State into a massive payday from LSU (who had to fend off Tennessee and others at the closing bell).
Was Leavitt actually worth a massive payday? Only the window knows for sure.
While everyone officially won the window, there was one confirmed loser.
My sanity.
Fortunately, I don't have to do this again for another year. Maybe by then, I'll know what to expect.
Nah, who are we kidding? The window will always keep us guessing.
Tell me how you felt about South Carolina's transfer portal haul by writing me at scottdavis@gamecockcentral.com. (Please do not reply to this email.)
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