When Darian Mensah left Duke for Miami this offseason, his leading receiver went with him. When Drew Mestemaker took North Texas's offense to Oklahoma State, so did the running back who scored 25 touchdowns behind him. The quarterbacks got the headlines. This is where their stories actually finish.
This is the second piece in our series grading the transfer portal by position. First we ranked the quarterbacks. Now the players they hand it and throw it to, and it turns out a lot of them packed the same moving truck.
The quarterback left.
Then his running back.
Then his favorite target.
Whole offenses are changing zip codes.
In this portal, a program does not just sign a quarterback. It signs his supporting cast, and rebuilds a full offense in a single winter.
The offenses that moved together
Two of the biggest quarterback moves in the class came with a familiar face attached.
- Duke to Miami. QB Darian Mensah left for the Hurricanes, and Cooper Barkate, his leading receiver, followed him out the door. Barkate caught 72 balls for 1,106 yards at Duke last year. That is not a quarterback finding new targets, that is a quarterback bringing his best one along.
- North Texas to Oklahoma State. QB Drew Mestemaker took his 4,369-yard arm to Stillwater, and running back Caleb Hawkins came too, all 1,424 yards and 25 touchdowns of him. Oklahoma State did not sign a passer and a rusher. It signed a North Texas offense.
When the timing works like that, the transfer is worth more than the sum of its stats. Chemistry does not usually travel. This offseason, twice, it did.
The running backs
The back class is deep and, in a few cases, a straight gamble on health.
Hawkins is the headliner on volume alone, but the one to watch on our beat is Justice Haynes, who brings 857 yards and 10 touchdowns from Michigan to Georgia Tech. He steps into a lead role for a team we open the season covering, so file that name away now. Raleek Brown gives Texas a 1,000-yard back to pair with everything else the Longhorns imported, and Kendrick Raphael quietly scored 13 times at Cal before landing at SMU.
The receivers
The receiver board runs deeper than any position in the portal, and the top of it is loaded with proven production.
Barkate leads on production, but the highest-rated receiver in the class is Cam Coleman, the former five-star who takes 725 yards from Auburn to a Texas team stacking its skill positions. Omarion Miller brings big-play juice from Colorado to Arizona State, and Isaiah Horton delivered 8 touchdowns at Alabama before heading to Texas A&M. This is the tier where a contender does not just fill a hole, it upgrades.
The injury bets
A few of the highest-rated backs on the board show almost nothing in the 2025 stat column, and that is the whole story.
Quintrevion Wisner (Texas to Florida State), CJ Baxter (Texas to Kentucky), and Hollywood Smothers (NC State to Texas) all carry top-tier ratings and near-empty rushing lines from last season. These are bets on a healthy return, not on last year's tape. When they hit, a team gets a starting-caliber back at a discount. When they do not, it is a wasted scholarship. High ceiling, real risk.
What it means
The quarterback carousel gets the attention because the position does. But the skill-position portal is where the offense actually gets rebuilt. A team can now import a 1,000-yard back, a 1,000-yard receiver, and the quarterback who fed them, and roll all three out on the same Saturday in a brand new uniform.
Last year's tape lies at every position now, not just under center. The depth chart is the only document that counts, and this fall, a lot of them read like a group project.
