Are Top Non-Power Skill Players Becoming Automatic Power 4 Transfers?

A quarterback lights up the Mountain West. A Sun Belt receiver posts 1,200 yards. A Conference USA running back becomes a weekly highlight reel.

And almost immediately, the conversation changes:

How long until a Power 4 program takes him?

That has become one of the defining fears for fans outside the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, and Big 12. A breakout season no longer just means success. Increasingly, it feels like a recruiting showcase for someone else.

So I wanted to test the theory using CFBTrack's player-season leaderboards and transfer portal records:

Are top non-Power 4 skill players now basically automatic Power 4 transfers?

The answer is more nuanced than the current portal panic suggests.

Across the full 2021-2025 sample, most elite non-power skill players still did not transfer to Power 4 programs.

But the trend line over the last two seasons is difficult to ignore.

The Method#

The sample included FBS players outside the Power 4 who finished top 20 among non-power programs in one of three regular-season categories:

• Passing yards
• Rushing yards
• Receiving yards

The player pool included:

• Quarterbacks
• Running backs/fullbacks
• Wide receivers
• Tight ends

Players were counted by player-season, not by career. A huge 2023 season and a huge 2024 season are separate portal-market events because the transfer environment changes every offseason.

For Power 4 destinations, I used:

• ACC
• Big Ten
• Big 12
• SEC

For origin programs, Pac-12 teams from 2021-2023 were excluded because they were still power-conference programs during those seasons. The post-realignment Pac-12 teams in 2024 and 2025 were treated as non-Power 4 for this specific analysis.

Eligibility is messy in modern college football, so I used a practical proxy: players counted as transfer-eligible if they showed remaining-class indicators, next-season activity, or a matching portal entry.

That produced:

• 211 eligible top-20 non-power skill-player seasons
• Across the 2021-2025 window

The Five-Year Result: Most Players Still Stayed#

Across the entire sample:

• 67 of 211
• Eligible top non-power skill-player seasons
• Ended in a Power 4 transfer

That is:

• 31.8%

So over the full five-year window, the answer is still no. Most elite Group of 5 skill players did not immediately jump to a Power 4 roster.

But the more revealing number is what happened once players decided to transfer at all.

Among players in this sample who transferred somewhere:

• 67 of 83
• Landed at a Power 4 school

That is:

• 80.7%

That distinction matters.

The best non-power skill players were not always leaving. But once they entered the transfer portal, the Power 4 almost always became the destination.

The Trend Is the Real Story#

The year-by-year numbers are where the article becomes much more interesting.

That is not a normal increase. It is a structural shift.

In the early portal era, the market was still relatively conservative. Coaches were learning how aggressively to use the portal, NIL collectives were less organized, and many staffs still preferred traditional high-school recruiting and internal development.

Over the last two seasons, that changed rapidly.

The combination of:

• Larger NIL budgets
• Immediate eligibility
• Roster pressure
• Expanded playoff stakes
• Growing confidence in portal evaluation

...has pushed Power 4 programs toward proven production instead of projection.

A 1,300-yard receiver at a Group of 5 school is no longer viewed as a developmental gamble. Increasingly, he is viewed as a ready-made roster upgrade.

That helps explain why the jump from 6.3% in 2021 to 55.6% in 2025 feels so dramatic. The portal stopped being supplemental roster management and started becoming a major acquisition strategy.

Across the 2024 and 2025 cohorts combined:

• 37 of 70
• Eligible top non-power skill leaders
• Moved to Power 4 schools

That is:

• 52.9%

So the strongest version of the theory is not:

This has always happened.

It is:

This is becoming the normal version of college football.

Receivers Are the Clearest Portal Targets#

The portal market also behaves differently by position.

Wide receivers and tight ends are the strongest support for the theory.

Nearly 39% of eligible top receiving producers transferred to Power 4 programs. And among receivers/tight ends who transferred at all, almost every move was upward.

That fits how modern staffs evaluate portal talent. Productive receivers are comparatively easy to project:

• Can he separate?
• Can he create explosives?
• Can he survive against FBS corners?
• Can he contribute immediately?

If the answer is yes, the transition is easy to imagine.

Quarterbacks are more complicated because scheme fit matters more. Running backs are harder to isolate because production is heavily tied to blocking, workload, and durability.

Receivers are cleaner bets.

And modern portal recruiting increasingly reflects that reality.

The Names Make the Trend Feel Real#

The 2024 and 2025 examples make the data stop feeling abstract.

From the 2024 leaderboard:

• Chandler Morris: North Texas -> Virginia
• John Mateer: Washington State -> Oklahoma
• Makhi Hughes: Tulane -> Oregon
• Ahmad Hardy: UL Monroe -> Missouri
• Joey Aguilar: App State -> Tennessee

Then 2025 pushed the pattern even further:

• Drew Mestemaker: North Texas -> Oklahoma State
• Cam Cook: Jacksonville State -> West Virginia
• Danny Scudero: San Jose State -> Colorado
• Katin Houser: East Carolina -> Illinois
• Anthony Colandrea: UNLV -> Nebraska

That is the modern portal pipeline fans are reacting to.

A player dominates outside the Power 4.

By December, he becomes a national recruiting battle.

The Older Counterexamples Still Matter#

The reason the five-year rate stays below a majority is because earlier portal seasons still had plenty of stars who never followed that path.

In 2021 alone:

• Lew Nichols
• Jerreth Sterns
• Carson Strong
• Sincere McCormick
• Deven Thompkins
• Jalen Tolbert
• Skyy Moore
• Trey McBride

...all had massive non-power seasons without simply becoming "next year's SEC transfer."

Some stayed. Some went pro. Some exhausted eligibility. Some transferred sideways.

That matters because it keeps the conclusion grounded. The portal is powerful, but it is still only one possible outcome for elite non-power players.

At least for now.

What This Means for Non-Power Programs#

For Group of 5 programs, the challenge is no longer just identifying and developing talent.

It is retaining that talent after the breakout happens.

A great season now creates:

• Wins for the team
• Exposure for the player
• Leverage for the portal market

Programs like North Texas, Tulane, UNLV, Troy, Liberty, Toledo, James Madison, and South Florida showed up repeatedly throughout this sample because they consistently develop productive offensive players.

And that creates an uncomfortable reality for the modern sport.

The best Group of 5 programs are increasingly functioning as developmental proving grounds for the rest of college football.

That is not necessarily an insult to those programs. In some ways, it is evidence that they are scouting and developing talent exceptionally well. The issue is that the financial and roster structure of the sport now makes it difficult to hold onto that success once it becomes nationally visible.

A breakout receiver at a non-power school used to be a long-term roster advantage.

Now he may also become a public audition for bigger programs with larger NIL budgets.

The Takeaway#

The five-year sample does not fully prove the popular fan theory.

From 2021-2025:

• Only 31.8%
• Of eligible top non-power skill leaders
• Transferred to Power 4 schools

But the recent numbers look dramatically different.

In 2024 and 2025:

• A majority did

And once players from this group entered the portal at all:

• The Power 4 won the recruitment more than 80% of the time

So the better conclusion is not:

Every great Group of 5 player is automatically gone.

It is:

College football is rapidly evolving toward a system where elite non-power production becomes part of the Power 4 talent pipeline.

You can explore the same kind of player production splits in the CFBTrack player season leaders, then compare movement through the college football transfer portal tracker.