Texas Football: Feleipe Franks to Arkansas sets new portal precedence

The NCAA Transfer Portal had its biggest day of the calendar year thus far, on Jan. 20, with two quarterbacks shuffling closely around Texas football.

Although it hasn’t had that much drama for involving any quarterback with their name in the NCAA Transfer Portal, beyond losing former highly touted signal caller Cameron Rising, the Texas football program will always be impacted by the events that transpire each passing offseason. The transfer portal did see some pretty crazy stuff transpire on Jan. 20.

The two main events that could cause the biggest day of the year for the transfer portal to go down should have means that even impact the Texas Longhorns football program. Those two transfers that were completed on Jan. 20 were the Miami Hurricanes landing former Houston Cougars senior quarterback D’Eriq King and the Arkansas Razorbacks landing former Florida Gators redshirt junior quarterback Feleipe Franks.

Neither King nor Franks was a potential transfer target for the Longhorns since they are bringing back to-be senior star quarterback Sam Ehlinger for the 2020 season. But King and Franks were two of the biggest names among signal callers in the transfer portal that were announced heading into the 2020 offseason.

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The announcement of Franks’ transfer to Arkansas is the third big name quarterback that the Hogs got out of the portal over the last 12 months. Arkansas hauled in former Texas A&M Aggies quarterback Nick Starkel and Ben Hicks formerly of the SMU Mustangs last year. But neither Starkel nor Hicks was as high profile of a transfer as Franks.

Both the transfers of King and Franks set a new precedent for how quickly upperclassmen quarterbacks can leave their respective programs once they feel there is a better opening elsewhere. This is an eerily similar narrative to what veteran free agents do in the NFL and NBA.

While this is not necessarily a change that is detrimental to the game of college football, it does show how quickly the landscape can shift nowadays.

All it took was a season-ending injury and a former back-up and unheralded quarterback recruit for the Gators, Kyle Trask, to have a solid end of the year to get Franks out of Gainesville. There would be a rather interesting quarterback battle transpiring for head coach Dan Mullen and the Gators if not for Franks landing in Fayetteville.

What is also significant about the transfer of Franks to Arkansas is that he stays in the SEC. Arkansas doesn’t face Florida in 2020, but they are still competing in the same conference. The fact that Franks stayed in the SEC still shows how quick a player with the profile that he has can flop teams in the same conference.

The Longhorns do face the Razorbacks during the non-conference slate in 2021. That will reignite a former rivalry between to Southwestern Conference traditional foes. But Franks should only have one year of eligibility left for his college career, so he won’t face the Longhorns in that 2021 meeting.