College football’s new normal has fully arrived - and it’s built on the transfer portal. Gone are the days of multi-year development cycles and stable depth charts.
Today, programs are being reshaped - or in some cases, gutted - every offseason. And nowhere is that churn more evident right now than at Iowa State and Colorado, two Power 4 programs staring down massive roster turnover heading into 2026.
Let’s start with the Cyclones. Iowa State leads all Power 4 teams in total snaps lost to the portal this offseason, bleeding away a staggering 62.56% of its offensive and defensive reps from last year.
That’s not just a rebuild - that’s a full-on reset. Yes, a coaching change played a major role here.
Matt Campbell left Ames and took a chunk of his roster with him to Penn State. That kind of exodus is expected when a longtime head coach moves on.
But it still leaves new head coach Jimmy Rogers with a bare cupboard.
Rogers, for his part, is no stranger to winning. He went 33-9 across three seasons at South Dakota State and Washington State, including a perfect 15-0 run to an FCS national title in 2023.
So the man knows how to build a program. Still, even the best coaching minds need more than a spring camp to rebuild nearly two-thirds of a roster’s production.
It’s going to be a steep climb in Ames, but don’t count Rogers out just yet. His track record suggests he’s more than capable of navigating this kind of chaos.
Then there’s Colorado - and the story there is different, but no less dramatic. The Buffaloes are losing 37.15% of their total snaps to the portal, despite no coaching change.
That’s eye-opening. Deion Sanders is heading into his fourth year in Boulder, and while he’s never been shy about using the portal to reshape his roster, the sheer scale of this year’s turnover raises eyebrows.
After a disappointing 3-9 season (1-8 in Big 12 play), Sanders reportedly held a “Come-to-Jesus” meeting with the team. It came just one year after a 9-win campaign and four players getting drafted - the most Buffs taken in a single draft since 2020. But the regression in 2025 was stark, and now Colorado is bringing in 42 new transfers to try to course-correct.
That’s not a typo - 42. Nearly half a roster’s worth of new faces.
And while Sanders has shown he’s comfortable with the idea of annual roster overhauls, the question becomes: can this kind of turnover be sustainable? Sure, a seven-win bounce-back could put him right back on magazine covers, but long-term program building usually requires more than just flashy portal moves and charisma.
Still, Colorado isn’t alone in this. Oklahoma State is another Big 12 program dealing with a mass exodus, losing 64 players to the portal - the most of any Power 4 team. That comes in the wake of Mike Gundy’s departure midseason, a seismic shift for a program that had long been one of the conference’s steadiest.
Auburn (39.35% of snaps lost), Michigan State (34.32%), Cal (33.66%), and Penn State (31.93%) round out the list of Power 4 schools losing at least 30% of their total snaps. Some of those teams are dealing with coaching changes, others with shifting program identities. But the through line is clear: no program is immune to the volatility of this new era.
The portal giveth, and the portal taketh away. And while some programs are adapting better than others, the margin for error is razor-thin. One bad season, one coaching change, one locker room fracture - and suddenly, your roster is scattered across the country.
But if there’s a silver lining, it’s that the new system also allows for quicker turnarounds. Indiana reminded us last year that even in the chaos, you can still bottle a little lightning.
So while Iowa State and Colorado are facing uphill battles, don’t write them off just yet. In today’s college football, the rebuild and the resurgence can happen in the same breath.