The transfer portal keeps shaking up college football, but nowhere does it hit harder than the Group of Six. Those leagues - the AAC, Pac-12, Mountain West, Sun Belt, C-USA and MAC - have become the place where rosters are patched together with players arriving from the Power Four on the way down or from FCS programs on the way up.
With that in mind, five newcomers stand out heading into the 2026 season.
At Notre Dame, Quincy Porter is the swing-for-the-fences addition at wide receiver. Marcus Freeman clearly wanted help for CJ Carr, and Porter fits the bill as a high-upside bet.
A five-star recruit in the class of 2025, he appeared in only five games last season. That makes him more projection than proven commodity, but if the talent shows up, he could change the shape of the Irish offense.
UNLV’s biggest portal storyline is Jackson Arnold, a quarterback whose career has already taken him from Oklahoma to Auburn and now into the Mountain West. Once one of the most highly regarded recruits in the country, Arnold has had his share of inconsistency.
In 27 games across three seasons, he has completed 63 percent of his passes for 3,293 yards with 22 touchdowns and eight interceptions. The Rebels are expected to be one of the Group of Six’s strongest teams, and Arnold’s steadiness will go a long way toward deciding whether they get there.
Memphis landed one of the more productive defenders on this list in J’Mond Tapp. His college path has been a winding one: two years and nine games at Texas, a stop at Arizona State with limited snaps, then a breakout at Southern Miss.
There, he posted 70 tackles, 12.0 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks. Now he follows Southern Miss coach Charles Huff to Memphis, where he’ll work under a new defensive coordinator but enters with the look of a player ready to make noise in the American Conference.
Colorado State is betting on upside with Hauss Hejny, a quarterback transfer from Oklahoma State. The Rams are trying to make a strong first impression in the Pac-12, and Hejny is a big part of that plan.
He came into college with four-star expectations and also spent time at TCU, but his production has leaned more on the ground than through the air. In two seasons, he has more rushing attempts than passing attempts, which makes him one of the more intriguing projects in the portal.
Then there’s UMass, where the search for a turnaround continues. The Minutemen have never won more than four games in a season since moving to FBS in 2012, and the recent stretch has been brutal: winless in 2025 and 10-76 since 2019.
Their hope now is Pop Watson, a western Massachusetts native who was a three-star recruit before heading to Virginia Tech. He saw limited action in three seasons there, but UMass is counting on the local connection and a fresh start to help spark something different.
In Other News...
Brian Kelly Is Already Getting Roasted For His Latest Hot Take
Brian Kelly is wasting no time trying to settle into his next act, and the former Notre Dame and LSU coach has already put himself back in the spotlight with a bold prediction about the national title race. Now moving into broadcasting, Kelly publicly picked Texas as the team to beat in 2026, a take that was meant to sound authoritative but quickly turned into another online talking point for a coach whose public image has taken plenty of hits.
Instead of sparking respect, Kellys forecast drew heavy criticism and mockery from fans and analysts, many of whom questioned whether he was the right voice to handicap the SEC after the way his recent coaching run played out. For Notre Dame fans who remember plenty of Kelly-era debate already, it was another reminder that even off the sideline, he still tends to invite a reaction before he can finish a sentence. [Read more 🡒]
Notre Dame Suddenly Sits At The Center Of A Major Independence Fight
College sports realignment has found Notre Dame in a familiar but increasingly consequential spot. Big Ten presidents and chancellors have officially voted to back new language in the Protect College Sports Act, nudging the legislation closer to a Senate vote and putting fresh attention on one of the sports most talked-about independents. Notre Dame has already signaled support for the bill, in large part because it would preserve a path to join a conference right away if the situation ever demanded it.
The broader push is still very much unsettled, though, and that is where the intrigue for Notre Dame really begins. The SEC is holding meetings to weigh its own support, Congress remains divided, and the measure still needs 60 Senate votes to move forward. For a program that has built its identity around independence, the fact that its preferred fallback plan is now part of a major legislative fight says plenty about how much the ground beneath college sports continues to shift. [Read more 🡒]
Malachi Fields Forces Giants To Notice With Camp Surge
Malachi Fields has carried his Notre Dame momentum straight into his first months with the Giants, turning heads during offseason workouts and again in training camp. The third-round pick arrived with a reputation as a standout from last season for the Fighting Irish, and he has quickly shown enough to get the attention of a team that brought in multiple receivers this offseason.
For now, Fields is still listed as the Giants WR4 behind several more established options, which makes the climb in front of him a real one. Even so, the early surge is the kind of thing teams notice in camp, especially when a rookie is trying to force his way into a crowded room and push the conversation beyond where he was drafted. [Read more 🡒]