Seniors can enter transfer portal

 

 

• Florida A&M’s football program received a postseason ban for the 2026 season due to low Academic Progress Rate scores.
• The NCAA clarified that the ruling does not allow most players to transfer freely, despite the expired transfer portal window.
• Only seniors or graduate students with one year of eligibility can enter the transfer portal, affecting about 15 players.
• New NCAA rules impose harsh penalties on schools that recruit underclassmen outside the portal, discouraging roster poaching.

Florida A&M’s football program may have received some encouraging information regarding its roster after getting hit with a postseason ban for the 2026 season due to low Academic Progress Rate scores.

Because of the ban, other schools can, in fact, contact Rattler players even though the NCAA Transfer Portal closed for entry on Jan. 16. That was nearly three months before April 10, when FAMU was hit with Level Two sanctions, including a postseason ban and practice restrictions.

But turning those conversations into conversions for rival teams could come at a heavy cost as NCAA guidelines are not as black-and-white as they may seem.

FAMU received further clarification from the NCAA that the ruling doesn’t allow players to transfer freely to another institution, a university official told the Tallahassee Democrat on Tuesday, April 14.

Yes, schools and opposing coaches can contact all current Rattler football student-athletes if the recruiting program notifies FAMU.

But that doesn’t guarantee a transfer move ― at least, without a harsh penalty if they poach certain players from the Rattlers.

Only seniors or graduate students with one year of eligibility remaining can enter the transfer portal despite the expired deadline.

The Rattlers have around 15 players who will exhaust their eligibility this fall, the school told the Tallahassee Democrat. FAMU rostered 88 players for April 3’s Orange and Green Spring Game under first-year head coach Quinn Fordham Gray Sr.

Freshmen, sophomores, juniors, or any player with multiple years of eligibility cannot enter the transfer portal whatsoever.

In past years, there was a recruiting loophole that allowed players to leave their current school for another without formally entering the transfer portal, a practice known as a “Ghost Transfer.” It was something that plagued the Rattlers’ roster before the 2025 season.

In early April, the NCAA adopted severe punishments to prevent “Ghost Transfers.”

Head coaches of schools that sign or play these athletes will face a half-season suspension, and the program will be fined 20% of the sport’s budget. It’s aimed to curb roster movement that bypasses official windows.

Despite being able to contact players, if any FAMU freshman, sophomore, or junior left for another school, their new program will be hit with those penalties. It basically behooves any of those players to stay on The Highest of Seven Hills and discourages other teams from legally tampering with the Rattlers’ roster.

So, the Rattlers likely won’t see as many departures unless the team’s small percentage of seniors and graduate students make an exodus, or if other teams are willing to accept the serious NCAA penalties by adding FAMU’s freshmen, sophomores, and juniors.

FAMU football postseason banned for the 2026 season

The Rattlers’ postseason adds to FAMU’s two-decade-long institutional struggle to meet the NCAA’s required APR score of 930 consistently.

APR is a team-based, four-year rolling metric that measures student-athlete eligibility and retention.

In the most recent APR report, FAMU scored a 911 for the 2023-2024 school year. That’s the same season the Rattlers won the Southwestern Athletic Conference title, Celebration Bowl, and Black College Football National Championship under former head coach Willie Simmons, who’s now the head coach at Florida International.

That low APR score led the NCAA to impose Level One penalties on FAMU, including reduced practice time, under former head coach James Colzie III, who was let go last December after two seasons and is now the special teams coordinator at Ithaca College.

FAMU last eclipsed the 930 threshold in 2018-2019 with Simmons as head coach. The 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 single-year APR scores haven’t been released on the NCAA database yet and FAMU officials have not disclosed the recent scores.

FAMU is vowing to take corrective and preventive measures to address APR, including increased academic monitoring and early identification to mitigate potential risks to the football program.

The Rattlers, under new head coach Gray, open their 2026 season on Aug. 29 by hosting the Albany State Golden Rams on Ken Riley Field at Bragg Memorial Stadium. And since FAMU is on a postseason ban, Nov. 21 is where the season ends, when the Rattlers take on rivals Bethune-Cookman Wildcats in Orlando’s Florida Classic.

Florida A&M football 2026 schedule

• Saturday, Aug. 29: vs. Albany State
• Sunday, Sept. 6: vs. South Carolina State, Orange Blossom Classic at Miami Gardens’ Hard Rock Stadium
• Thursday, Sept. 10: at Miami
• Saturday, Sept. 19: vs. Tennessee State
• Saturday, Sept. 26: vs. Alabama A&M (SWAC)
• Saturday, Oct. 3: BYE
• Saturday, Oct. 10: at Alabama State (SWAC)
• Saturday, Oct. 17: at Jackson State (SWAC)
• Saturday, Oct. 24: vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff (SWAC/Homecoming)
• Saturday, Oct. 31: vs. Southern (SWAC)
• Saturday, Nov. 7: at Alcorn State (SWAC)
• Saturday, Nov. 14: vs. Mississippi Valley State (SWAC)
• Saturday, Nov. 21: vs. Bethune-Cookman (SWAC/Florida Classic)

Gerald Thomas, III, is a multi-time national award-winning reporter for his coverage of the Florida A&M Rattlers at the Tallahassee Democrat.

Follow his award-winning coverage on RattlerNews.com and contact him via email at GDThomas@Tallahassee.com or on the app formerly known as Twitter @3peatgee.