Tyon Grant-Foster never loses faith.

With Gonzaga down double-digits to underdog Seattle on Jan. 2, the veteran did not waver. He helped the Bulldogs claw back in the second half, making a game-saving block on the perimeter to force overtime before finishing with 19 points.

“It’s crazy, I’ve never had a guy like that that can just challenge a shot and block it,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said about the 6-foot-7 forward following the win. “You don’t see very many perimeter blocked shots.”

Grant-Foster developed that resilience over the course of an eight-year college basketball career complicated by a heart condition that led to two collapses — and cost him nearly two entire seasons.

By the time he turns 26 in March, Grant-Foster will have suited up for five different schools. His journey has included two seasons at Indian Hills Community College, one at Kansas — his dream program, where he saw limited play (8.1 minutes per game) — then a fraction of one at DePaul, where he played just a half-game before his first collapse in 2021. After collapsing a second time three months later — and missing the 2022-23 season — Grant-Foster secured clearance from his doctors at the Mayo Clinic and made his way back to the court for two seasons at Grand Canyon.

Grant-Foster needed NCAA approval for one more year at Gonzaga, though. Having spent nearly two years fighting for another opportunity to play the sport he loves, a courtroom battle with the NCAA did not scare him. After it denied his eligibility waiver request, a judge granted him a preliminary injunction, allowing him to play this season.

“If you know my story,” Grant-Foster said. “you know I didn’t ask for any of this to happen.”

In a controversial era that has allowed former G League players, NBA draft picks and international pros to secure eligibility, the question about who deserves second chances — for a player who has already had several of them — was at the center of Grant-Foster’s push for a final season. He was fighting for a starting spot on a No. 8 Gonzaga squad with realistic Final Four aspirations (Grant-Foster is third in scoring with 11.3 points per game).

“As I told him before, sometimes you have to sit, be patient and just wait on your time,” said Kim Mitchell, a parental figure to Grant-Foster in high school. “When you’re patient, things should work. Most of the time, it’ll work out in your favor.”

Since his childhood, Grant-Foster never slowed down.

When a young Grant-Foster got tired of running around his house in Kansas City, Kansas, he asked his mother and father to sign him up for a local sports team. When they didn’t match his urgency, he walked to the park himself and brought them the paperwork.

“He kept bugging us to get him on the team,” said Talisha Grant, his mother. “We didn’t move fast enough, so he went and found a team on his own.”

Grant-Foster loved to challenge his friends in marathon video game battles and late-night shootarounds. It never mattered when or where. At any moment, he could ask you to drop to the floor for a race to 25 pushups. That tenacity bled into the gym, where he blossomed into the No. 1 junior college player in America after two years at Indian Hills Community College — and, eventually, worthy of a scholarship from Kansas.

Almost from the start, it wasn’t a fit. He saw limited time, averaging just 3.1 points in Lawrence. After one tough game with the Jayhawks, a frustrated Grant-Foster kept walking through the parking lot even as his mother called his name. He seemed almost in a daze.

“He was confused most of the time and the system just wasn’t a good fit for him,” Reese Holliday, Grant-Foster’s mentor and trainer, said about his stint at Kansas. “That’s really all it came down to. I just said, ‘Next time, this next decision, we’ve got to go somewhere where we know what we’re getting,’ which led to DePaul.”

The Blue Demons offered Grant-Foster a chance to start over and restore his confidence. After a summer working out with the squad, he felt like himself again before the 2021-22 season.

Only 20 minutes into his debut, everything changed.

Grant-Foster had just made a go-ahead 3-pointer in the season opener against Coppin State. When he headed for the locker room at halftime, he collapsed in the tunnel. The school’s medical team surrounded him as he briefly regained consciousness, while he asked what the fuss was all about and why everyone was standing around him instead of preparing for the second half. Then he lost consciousness again.

DePaul’s medical staffers began CPR so intense Grant-Foster later complained about severe pain from the compressions. It took three rounds of shocks from an automated external defibrillator before he was resuscitated.

“Essentially, in cardiac arrest, you lose a pulse and your heart stops beating,” said Michael Sommer, the DePaul trainer who performed CPR on Grant-Foster. “So you don’t have much time to do CPR, keep the heart pumping and try your best to restore life. You’re trying to keep him alive.”

Grant-Foster had no recollection of the collapse.

“When I woke up, it was like I didn’t know what was going on,” he said. “I felt normal and everything. I just remember waking up, everybody was around me and then I had to get into an ambulance and go to the hospital.”

After a 10-day stint between two Chicago hospitals, Grant-Foster learned he had scarring on his heart from a genetic condition called arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy and needed an implanted defibrillator. Doctors framed the stakes with sobering advice: Pick up a set of golf clubs instead because the chance of playing basketball again didn’t seem like a reality.

“My son heard that and that was probably the first time in a long time that I saw tears drop out of his eyes,” Talisha Grant said. “There was this wail that came from my son that I had never heard before that I’m not going to forget.”

The defibrillator didn’t prevent another incident, though. It didn’t help that, according to those around him, Tyon did not always heed doctors’ warnings such as other young athletes recovering from injuries, but continued to push the limits, still challenging others to push-up contests.

Three months after his first incident, while recovering at home in Kansas City, Grant-Foster collapsed again while playing pickup with former Jayhawks teammate and now Denver Nuggets guard Christian Braun. Grant-Foster would need another surgery to have more scarring removed.

DePaul refused to clear him after the second collapse, offering support if he wanted to be a coach or have another role with the program, but casting doubt on his playing future.

Grant-Foster was once again preparing for life without basketball.

In his time off the court, he turned to movies such as “Training Day,” “Pursuit of Happyness” and “King Arthur” for inspiration on overcoming adversity. They also were distractions and stories that ended with good guys winning. He spent those months hoping he would get a chance to win again, too.

That chance came on March 30, 2023 — more than a year after his second collapse — when Grant-Foster finished a Zoom call with his new team of doctors at the Mayo Clinic. They gave him the news he had been waiting for: the green light to resume his career.

As soon as the call ended, Grant-Foster grabbed his shoes and shorts and headed toward the gym.

He had to make sure he would be OK on the court again.

“I prayed and I ran, and I just didn’t think about it,” he said about those first moments back on the floor. “Whenever I got tired, I took a break, but whenever I had to do sprints, I would run hard — as hard as I could — just because if you think about certain things, you’re going to hold yourself back. You’re never going to get into that shape you’ve got to get into. If your heart rate isn’t getting up, how is it going to get there when you need it to? So I just didn’t think about it.”

Grand Canyon head coach Bryce Drew understood the risk.

Drew had watched his brother, Scott, the head coach at Baylor, wade through situations involving multiple players with heart issues. Former Final Four hero Jared Butler had been diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in high school. Former Baylor standouts Isaiah Austin and King McClure, now an ESPN analyst, had dealt with career-altering heart issues, too.

Those experiences prepared Bryce Drew for a pitch from a former assistant, Jamall Walker, who knew Grant-Foster from their circles in Kansas City and praised his potential. Drew was willing to offer him a second chance.

After Grand Canyon worked with Grant-Foster’s doctors at the Mayo Clinic to get him ready to play, he showcased all of the potential he had never had an opportunity to display. A full 726 days after his first and only game at DePaul, Grant-Foster scored 30 points for Grand Canyon in a season-opening win over Southeast Missouri State.

“By that first game, we didn’t quite know what to expect,” said Walker, a former Grand Canyon assistant. “And then he shot out like a cannon. I think he scored 20 points in the first half, and I think he shocked himself. He was doing high-fives with the people in the stands.”

He scored 25 or more points in 10 games that season, earning 2023-24 Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year honors. He led No. 12-seeded Grand Canyon to its first NCAA tournament victory with 22 points in an upset of No. 5 Saint Mary’s in the first round.

He was hindered by an ankle injury in his second season but still managed to help the Lopes reach the NCAA tournament for the fourth time in program history.

When Gonzaga began recruiting him, it was impossible not to listen. Grant-Foster had always dreamed of playing in the NBA, and Few had produced a dozen first-round picks.

“That’s the level that I want to be at,” Grant-Foster said about his commitment to Gonzaga. “And Coach Few has been around that. He’s coached players that have been there.”

Gonzaga’s team physicians worked with Grant-Foster’s cardiologist to prepare him for a final season. “The medical collaboration started long before he showed up on campus,” said Josh Therrien, a team trainer.

Still, Grant-Foster would need another year of eligibility — and the NCAA denied the request the team made on his behalf. He found himself in yet another fight for his future nearly four years after he first collapsed. This time, he had the support of a coach who believed he could be the player needed for the program’s first national title.

“It’s just been a really tough deal. He’s an incredible guy. He’s got an incredible story,” Few said. “I’ve now been coaching college for 31 years. I know it’s a hard situation for the NCAA with all of these waivers that happen to be out there. But I’ve never seen one as unique as this. He literally died. His heart stopped, not once but twice when he was on the floor. They’re just wrong on this one.”

Gonzaga builds camaraderie with trips to local sushi and steakhouse outlets. This season, they’ve also focused on developing chemistry with their new teammate Grant-Foster.

For months, those meals were their only way to connect with Grant-Foster, who was barred from practice after the NCAA denied his waiver request and before his lawyer sued for an injunction.

The years before molded him into a resilient competitor, though. He had heard the word “no” when he didn’t qualify to play Division I basketball after high school. He heard it again after he collapsed — twice — and nearly lost the ability to play his favorite sport. He refused to accept it from the NCAA, too.

In October, Grant-Foster stood in a courtroom and smiled as Spokane County Judge Marla Polin granted him an injunction to play, with Few sitting a few rows back.

“I wasn’t really clear on everything,” Grant-Foster said. “So at first I asked my lawyer when the judge was speaking, ‘Is this good?’ He was like, ‘It’s really good.’ And then once she said the verdict and everything, I was just like, ‘Thank you. I appreciate you.’ Because it was a long process.”

After the verdict, he and Few drove back to campus for an exhibition game against Western Oregon. During the car ride, Grant-Foster sent his mentor Holliday a text message: “We’re green.”

At the arena, Few scrapped his pregame speech to allow Grant-Foster to enjoy the moment with his teammates.

“It was pure joy,” Gonzaga star Graham Ike said. “Just to have our brother join us and be able to come out with us just after everything that he had been through, especially through the court situation and his heart situation, as well.”

When he ran onto the court for the first time, the building erupted.

Grant-Foster had played college basketball at Kansas and DePaul during the height of the COVID pandemic, so it was the first time he had ever experienced a real crowd — and the thousands gathered were all cheering for him.

“It’s the resilience that he’s had,” said Tarrance Crump, a former DePaul assistant. “How he bounced back and stayed the course.”

Now, the Bulldogs have a player who could be one of the reasons they cut down the nets in April. He was averaging 11.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.2 blocks heading into Wednesday’s game against Pepperdine. He’s rated as an “excellent” defender on Synergy Sports, contributing to the best defense Few has had at Gonzaga in five years.

“He can get downhill super easy, he can shoot the ball,” said Braden Huff, a junior forward currently sidelined with a knee injury. “He’s a three-level scorer, and then defensively, he’s blocking shots, just disrupting things on that end, so he does a bunch for us, and his energy day in, day out is huge.”

For those who have experienced Grant-Foster’s journey, every moment he’s on the court feels surreal.

For the 25-year-old who has lived it, this conclusion always seemed possible.

He never lost hope.

“I feel like some people don’t really understand how uncontrollable the circumstances were for me. It’s not just a regular injury where you can rehab back from this,” Grant-Foster said. “So when sometimes I see people judging me like, ‘Oh, he’s older’ and all of this, but you really just don’t know what I had to go through to even get back to playing basketball again.”

Early in the 2026 quarterback transfer cycle, the entire landscape seemed to pause.

Brendan Sorsby planned trips to Texas Tech, LSU and Miami. Those schools stood pat as they awaited his decision. All the QBs behind Sorsby on the board? They waited too. The tentacles of Sorsby’s process extended to everyone from the top-ranked QB in the portal, Sam Leavitt, to Harvard transfer Jaden Craig. 

During that time, CBS Sports heard a common question from agents, coaches and general managers alike: “What’s Sorsby going to do?”

It wasn’t just curiosity. They needed to know whether to pivot, hold tight or push someone to commit.

That’s the quarterback domino effect: One decision can cause an earthquake thousands of miles away as teams adjust on the fly when their targets come off the board.

Going into the cycle one offensive coordinator called the depth of the quarterback crop a “buyer’s market.” It quickly morphed into something different with salaries flying past the $5-million mark.

Exiting one of the most chaotic quarterback transfer cycles in history, this is an in-depth look at how the dominoes fell and the reverberations from each decision.

The winners and losers of the 2026 college football transfer portal

Chris Hummer

Top of the board

Brendan Sorsby, QB, Cincinnati

Cincinnati initially hoped to retain Sorsby. But after stumbling down the stretch it became clear by early December he’d enter the transfer portal. 

Texas Tech and Indiana were initially the schools on Sorsby the hardest. The Red Raiders were his home-state program. The Hoosiers, pushing toward perfection, were a familiar option given that Sorsby began his career in Bloomington. 

Eventually, the Red Raiders emerged as the team to beat.

But a few days before his visits were scheduled to begin, a source close to the situation indicated LSU had quietly pulled ahead. Lane Kiffin and the Tigers were recruiting Sorsby aggressively. Miami had joined the mix, too, and had the biggest offer on the table — at the time over $5 million.

What once seemed a certainty — Sorsby to Texas Tech — created uncertainty in the rest of the market.

Texas Tech got the first visit and scrambled to find a backup plan when Sorsby left campus without committing. That pulled in Sam Leavitt — who those like Kentucky were pursuing hard — and TCU’s top target Jaden Craig, and put them in wait-and-see mode based on what Sorsby would do.

The Red Raiders quickly scheduled a visit with Leavitt while Sorsby saw Baton Rouge. Craig’s camp wondered whether Texas Tech would miss on both. Craig ultimately committed to TCU before Sorsby’s decision was final. Gotta take a spot when there is one. 

In the end, Sorsby landed at Texas Tech for an NIL deal a source said was worth up to $6 million a year.

Sam Leavitt, QB Arizona State

Despite ranking as the No. 1 player in the 247Sports portal, Leavitt didn’t have a robust market — at least at first. He had two things working against him: 1. A foot injury that could keep him out through spring practice. 2. Arizona State did not provide kind feedback on him behind the scenes.

Top-of-the-market teams like Indiana, Texas Tech, Miami and LSU looked elsewhere. But talent tends to win out eventually, which led the latter three teams to join the race.

Texas Tech pushed for Leavitt as a Sorsby contingency. So did LSU. Miami joined the fray and Tennessee, at the last minute, did too.

LSU eventually zeroed in on Leavitt as its priority target. Then things went slightly awry when Demond Williams Jr. dropped a bombshell into the cycle with his intention to enter the portal.

The Tigers were a prime contender for Williams, and news they planned to pursue him broke while Leavitt was on LSU’s campus. That caused some tension, per a source familiar with the matter. That meant Leavitt left for a visit to Tennessee and then to Miami with LSU potentially missing out on another top QB target.

LSU brought in USC’s Husan Longstreet on a visit as a contingency, but Lane Kiffin went to Knoxville to speak with Leavitt and convinced him to pick LSU.

Then, in one of the bigger surprises of the cycle, LSU managed to get Longstreet, too.

Josh Hoover, QB, TCU

It was an open question around Fort Worth for most of December if Hoover would stick around for his senior season. He didn’t, turning down a very competitive offer to hop in the portal.

Several teams were in pursuit of Hoover, including Texas Tech, Kentucky, Missouri and Louisville. But the two main contenders were Indiana and Ole Miss.

The Hoosiers were the heavy favorite from the moment Hoover hopped into the portal. The Rebels, believing Trinidad Chambliss‘ waiver was a long-shot effort, began recruiting Hoover aggressively as a replacement. Hoover was scheduled to visit Ole Miss but canceled that trip and committed to Indiana that same day.

Dylan Raiola, QB, Nebraska

Raiola had some dialogue with Louisville, but his focus never really turned away from the Ducks. Sources indicated to CBS Sports in November that Raiola wanted Oregon. He did to such a degree he was willing to back up Dante Moore for a season.

That’s exactly what he did. Oregon liked some other quarterbacks. They looked at those like Ty Simpson, Drew Mestemaker and Williams. Ultimately, Moore came back to school while the Ducks got the most qualified backup in the country.

The Trinidad Chambliss reverberations

Chambliss’ future hung over the quarterback carousel. The Rebels were doing a delicate dance. They were selling their players and skill players in the portal that Chambliss would get his waiver for an extra year. At the same time, they were recruiting starter-turned-backup Austin Simmons to stay.

That was a consideration for Simmons. But with few answers about Chambliss’ future available and Missouri — which had missed on several targets — in need of a starter, Simmons suddenly and decisively entered the portal with a do-not-contact tag. CBS Sports reported Missouri was the team to beat within minutes of the initial report he planned to enter.

That meant the Rebels had to pivot.

Ole Miss inked Chambliss to a huge contract for the 2026 season, but sources familiar with the situation considered Chambliss’ waiver a longshot. Chambliss may get an injunction to play in 2026 from the courts, but that’s a big “IF.”

Thus the Rebels turned to transfer quarterbacks.

Ole Miss looked at several but given how late it was in the cycle they were forced to move with Chambliss’ waiver situation undecided, they mainly focused on two: Auburn’s Deuce Knight and Florida’s DJ Lagway.

Knight, a top 100 recruit in the 2025 class, left Ole Miss after just one season. He entered the portal and many teams reached out — Boston College made a big push — yet his home-state Rebels always seemed like the likely pick.

With just one game of starting experience, however, Knight was considered a risky addition on his own. So, Ole Miss zeroed in on Lagway.

A five-star passer in the 2024 class and a two-year starter for the Gators, Lagway entered the portal in a weird place. He’s an ultra-talented passer with No. 1 draft pick upside. He’s also coming off a series of major injuries and regressed in 2025. Plus, as one SEC coordinator put it to CBS Sports: “He’s DJ Lagway. He’s a huge name. He can scare off the rest of your room.”

Lagway received calls from those like LSU and Missouri. Mostly, however, it was a smaller group of schools pushing for him: Florida State, Virginia, Baylor and Stanford.

He’d visit the first three. Those around Lagway always considered it a long shot he’d pick the ‘Noles. Virginia made a very strong impression. Then he made it to Baylor’s campus — the school his dad played for — and committed to the staff.

Done and done.

Except the Rebels had been pushing for a visit. Once the excitement wore down — and when his initial outreach to potential portal receivers went largely unheeded — Lagway opted to visit Oxford.

Ole Miss had to juggle Knight and Lagway on campus at the same time. Knight committed on his trip. Lagway did not. Instead, after a long delay and a brief pursuit by Duke, he signed with Baylor.  

The Rebels scrambled again. They added former Ole Miss backup Walker Howard from Louisiana to give the room some experience. They also continued to tell potential portal additions Chambliss would get an injunction from the Mississippi court system. 

A path forward emerges in Trinidad Chambliss’ eligibility case

Chris Hummer

A major coaching connection

An interesting wrinkle this cycle is all the coach-quarterback connections that happened because of coaching carousel movement. We’ve seen in recent years the power of the right quarterback-coach combo — think Ben Arbuckle as OC and John Mateer as QB at Oklahoma last offseason — and it happened a ton in 2026.

Mestemaker gave some consideration to Oregon. But it was a half-hearted exploration at best. He instead committed to Morris, his North Texas head coach, and gave him a building block for Oklahoma State’s future.

Alex Golesh left South Florida for Auburn, and it was the worst-kept secret in college football circles that his Bulls QB, Byrum Brown, would join him on The Plains.

You could say the same of Matt Campbell and his quarterback Rocco Becht, both of whom left Ames for Happy Valley.

It happened with James Franklin and Penn State quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer, too. The Hokies considered other QBs like Missouri’s Beau Pribula — more on him in a bit — but ultimately zeroed in on Grunkemeyer as the answer.

Not long after Florida hired Buster Faulkner came Georgia Tech backup QB Aaron Philo’s announcement that he planned to enter the portal. Faulkner was quite comfortable with Philo fronting the room along with returning freshman Tramell Jones. 

It happened with Arkansas, too. Ryan Silverfield and his staff recruited East Carolina QB Katin Houser hard, but he ended up picking Illinois. So, the Razorbacks took a familiar face in AJ Hill from Memphis, who, just one cycle ago, was a blockbuster signee out of high school for the Tigers.

Bluegrass State machinations

Kentucky didn’t necessarily have to find a starter in the 2026 transfer portal. The Wildcats returned Cutter Boley, a Lexington native who had a promising sophomore campaign. But Kentucky was also interested in taking a big swing to capitalize on the momentum created by Will Stein’s hiring, and they made pushes for those like Leavitt and Hoover.

That spooked Boley, who found an interested suitor in Arizona State, itself in need of a QB thanks to Leavitt’s departure.

With Kentucky swinging big, Nebraska emerged as the top suitor for Notre Dame transfer Kenny Minchey, who had also been recruited hard by those like Nebraska and Wisconsin.

Minchey to Nebraska emerged as a done deal shortly after the transfer portal opened.

When it became clear the Wildcats wouldn’t land Leavitt or Hoover, they pivoted back to Minchey, which led to one of the more stunning flips of the cycle as Minchey picked the Wildcats after being publicly committed to the Huskers.

Then Nebraska had to scramble.

Within 24 hours the Huskers had UNLV transfer Anthony Colandrea — a Florida State target — on campus. They also brought Pribula for a visit at the same time.

Colandrea committed first, so he got the spot.

Florida State pivoted to Auburn transfer Ashton Daniels — another backup plan for Kentucky — as Colandrea made his Huskers push.

Things were no less calm at Louisville, which disrupted the QB cycle for a few teams, too.

The Cardinals considered a few quarterbacks but eventually — and quietly — zeroed in on Ohio State backup Lincoln Kienholz. Previously, Cincinnati and South Florida were battling for Kienholz, who was all but committed to the Bearcats earlier in the portal window.

But Kienholz pivoted when Louisville pushed. He flew for a visit and committed the same day.

This meant the Bearcats had to change course. They turned to Hauss Hejny, who South Florida and Colorado State were also courting. The Rams had just had him on campus, and they got him to sign before he could visit elsewhere. That led the Bearcats to Georgia Southern QB JC French.

Meanwhile, South Florida, which had also hoped to land Hejny or Kienholz, earned commitments from the combination of LSU’s Michael Van Buren and Mississippi State’s Luke Kromenhoek.

Wisconsin had one of the messiest quarterback rooms in the country this season. Billy Edwards Jr. suffered a major injury early in the campaign that basically kept him out all season, which led to the Power Four’s worst-ranked passing offense starting four different quarterbacks in 2025.

The Badgers always planned on adding a starter in the portal and it made sense for Edwards to move on, too.

Wisconsin looked at several quarterbacks in the portal, including Minchey, but they eventually zeroed in on Old Dominion’s Colton Joseph as their top target. Joseph was a popular name with those like Florida State and UCF recruiting him hard.

But the Badgers were able to land the Sun Belt Offensive Player of the Year, their fourth straight portal quarterback.

With Joseph off the board, UCF turned its focus to James Madison QB Alonza Barnett III, who was also a person of interest for South Florida.

North Carolina loved Edwards and quickly landed on him out of the portal. That led to the Tar Heels’ 2025 starter, Gio Lopez, transferring to Wake Forest.

Beau Pribula’s winding path

If you’re looking for a singular example of the craziness of the portal quarterback cycle, look no further than Pribula, who took the following visits before finding a home:

• Virginia Tech: The Hokies were long considered Pribula’s likely landing spot upon his entry to the portal. It would have been a reunion for Pribula with James Franklin and most of the old Penn State staff. When it became apparent it’d be either Grunkemeyer or Pribula for the Hokies — Grunkemeyer wasn’t going to transfer and sit — Virginia Tech chose the younger QB. That sent Pribula scrambling.
• Nebraska: Colandrea committed first while both he and Pribula were on campus, and the Huskers were only going to take one QB.
• Washington: The Huskies contacted Pribula within an hour of Williams announcing his intent to enter the portal. But they were always open with Pribula’s camp that their preference was to take Williams back. That they did.
• Tennessee: When the Vols missed on Leavitt, they brought in Pribula for a visit to campus. It didn’t end up being a fit.
• Virginia: Finally, a match! Pribula visited Charlottesville and committed shortly after.

Two days later the Cavs also took former Pittsburgh starter Eli Holstein.

A late quarterback domino

As Miami made its championship push a fascinating subplot occurred: Who the heck would play QB for the Hurricanes in 2026?

For the third offseason in a row Miami opted to go big-game hunting. The Hurricanes wanted Sorsby. He picked Texas Tech. They wanted Leavitt. He went with LSU. They wanted Williams. He couldn’t get out of his Washington contract. They wanted Ty Simpson once he left Alabama for the NFL, but he spurned a huge Miami offer to stay in the draft.

Duke files lawsuit against star QB Darian Mensah in wake of last-minute transfer portal entry request

Chris Hummer

Miami’s options dwindled as the days counted down on the portal. By deadline day the top 26 players in the 247Sports quarterback rankings were off the board. The Hurricanes were out of options.

Then came a late earthquake — Duke star QB Darian Mensah opted to enter.

The Hurricanes had always liked Mensah, and when they needed a QB most, he opted to break a once record-setting contract and jump into the open market. Problem solved for Miami, which is the clear favorite to land him.

All the problems in the world were created for Duke. Another domino. Another team feeling the aftereffects. Except, in this case, there aren’t any really starting-caliber dominoes left in play.