The 2025 NFL Draft has come and it has gone. In its wake, a plethora of new beginnings. For most players, this will be the first time they join a new team since they left high school.
But in the era of the transfer portal in college football, some of these players will be joining their third or fourth (sometimes even fifth) new team since they left high school. So, it begs the question: Which 2025 NFL Draft picks were transfers? Which were not.
Which 2025 NFL Draft Picks Were Transfers?
In order to do this exercise, we had to study each individual drafted player’s college journey. To do so, we examined where each athlete signed their original letter of intent.
As a reminder, this is not where the player was “drafted from.” Instead, this is where every player started their careers. If you would like to see where each player was drafted from, see 2025 NFL Draft Picks by School.
Let’s get to the data.
In total, a whopping 95 of the 257 total draft picks were transfers at one point or another. That’s 36.9% of the draft picks.
Of those, 11 players had transferred two or more times, or just 4.3%.
Which teams lost the most you ask? Of the 95 transfers, 73 total schools are represented. Inside of that figure, 55 schools had just a single player transfer away and hear their name called, while 18 schools saw two or more players start their college career with their university before transferring and getting drafted.
Here’s that list of most transferred away players to be drafted in the 2025 NFL Draft:
- Oregon – 5
Tyler Shough, QB (Louisville)
Dont’e Thornton, WR (Tennessee)
Bradyn Swinson, EDGE (LSU)
Moliki Matavao, TE (UCLA)
Trikweze Bridges, CB (Florida) - Florida – 3
Princely Umanmielen, EDGE (Ole Miss)
Trevor Etienne, RB (Georgia)
Antwaun Powell-Ryland, EDGE (Virginia Tech) - Duke – 2
Riley Leonard, QB (Notre Dame)
Aeneas Peebles, DT (Virginia Tech) - Georgia Tech – 2
Demetrius Knight Jr., LB (South Carolina)
Kyle Kennard, EDGE (South Carolina) - Jackson State – 2
Travis Hunter, WR/CB (Colorado)
Shedeur Sanders, QB (Colorado) - LSU – 2
Jack Bech, WR (TCU)
Landon Jackson, EDGE (Arkansas) - Miami-FL – 2
Elijah Roberts, DT (SMU)
Brashard Smith, RB (SMU) - Michigan State – 2
Derrick Harmon, DT (Oregon)
Ricky White III, WR (UNLV) - Middle Tennessee – 2
Jaylin Lane, WR (Virginia Tech)
Quincy Riley, CB (Louisville) - Ohio State – 2
Kyle McCord, QB (Syracuse)
Quinn Ewers, QB (Texas) - Oregon State – 2
Marcus Harris, CB (California)
Damien Martinez, RB (Miami-FL) - Tennessee – 2
Jordan Phillips, DT (Maryland)
Tyler Baron, EDGE (Miami-FL) - Texas A&M – 2
Walter Nolen, DT (Ole Miss)
Fadil Diggs, EDGE (Syracuse) - Troy – 2
Caleb Ransaw, CB (Tulane)
Tez Johnson, WR (Oregon) - UNLV – 2
Kyle Williams, WR (Washington State)
Nohl Williams, CB (California) - USC – 2
Jaxson Dart, QB (Ole Miss)
Jay Toia, DT (UCLA) - Virginia – 2
Mike Green, EDGE (Marshall)
RJ Harvey, RB (UCF) - Wisconsin – 2
Chimere Dike, WR (Florida)
Graham Mertz, QB (Florida)
If you were here for the draft trackers during the event, you would remember that one of the items we looked at was the production by each conference. The SEC dominated the action but what if we sorted that by where each player started their careers?
Well, that gets a bit tricky. In the instances of these transfers technically starting their careers with programs that may have been in a different conference (think USC and/or Oregon, who were in the Pac-12 when these athletes enrolled), we lumped them in the conferences that their programs were in when they enrolled, so these numbers may look a bit off.
Yes, the Pac-12 technically had quite a few players drafted in this instance.
Here is how the conferences would have ranked.
- SEC – 65
(79 actually)- SEC — but actually AAC at the time – 1
- SEC — but actually Big 12 at the time – 1
- Big Ten – 59
(71 actually) - ACC – 33
(42 actually) - FCS – 23
(8 actually) - Big 12 – 21
(31 actually) - Pac-12 – 13
(1 actually)- Big Ten — but actually Pac-12 at the time – 7
- ACC — but actually Pac-12 at the time – 2
- Big 12 — but actually Pac-12 at the time – 1
- AAC – 10
(6 actually)- Big 12 — but actually AAC at the time – 1
- SEC — but actually AAC at the time – 1
- MAC – 6
(4 actually) - Mountain West – 6
(6 actually) - Ind. – 7
(7 actually)- Big 12 — but actually Independent at the time – 1
- Sun Belt – 5
(1 actually) - CUSA – 4
(1 actually) - JUCO – 4
(0 actually)
Let me break out those ‘but actually’ numbers here.
The Big Ten — but in actuality, they were Pac-12 enrollees are:
- Oregon:
Dont’e Thornton, WR (Tennessee)
Bradyn Swinson, EDGE (LSU)
Moliki Matavao, TE (UCLA)
Trikweze Bridges, CB (Florida)
Tyler Shough, QB (Louisville) - USC:
Jaxson Dart, QB (Ole Miss)
Jay Toia, DT (UCLA)
The ACC — but in actuality, they were Pac-12 enrollees are:
- Cal:
Oluwafemi Oladejo, EDGE (UCLA) - Stanford:
Myles Hinton, OT (Michigan)
The Big 12 — but in actuality, they were AAC enrollees are:
- UCF:
Dillon Gabriel, QB (Oregon)
The Big 12 — but in actuality, they were Pac-12 enrollees are:
- Arizona State:
Omarr Norman-Lott, DT (Tennessee)
The Big 12 — but in actuality, they were Independent enrollees are:
- BYU:
Caleb Lohner, TE (Utah)
The SEC — but in actuality, they were AAC enrollees are:
- Houston:
Matthew Golden, WR (Texas) - SMU:
Marcus Bryant, OT (Missouri)
The SEC — but in actuality, they were Big 12 enrollees are:
- Texas:
Kitan Crawford, S (Nevada)
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