Things may have gotten off to a nice start for Clay Helton and USC this season, but one Trojan is exploring his options. Sophomore wide receiver Devon Williams has reportedly entered the NCAA transfer portal, thus allowing him to begin evaluating any possible transfer options. Cole Cubelic of SEC Network reported the transfer portal news, via Twitter.
University of Southern California WR Devon Williams has entered the NCAA transfer portal.
— Cole Cubelic (@colecubelic) September 11, 2019
Was the No. 40 overall player in the 2018 recruiting class.
The former four-star recruit chose USC over offers from Oregon, UCLA, Utah, and Alabama, just to name a few. By entering the transfer portal, Williams is allowed to have any contact with any other college football program who may want to recruit him. However, Williams can decide to pull his name out of the portal at any time and stick with USC. The risk is Helton is no longer required to honor Williams’ scholarship and can move on if he feels the need to do so. while most players probably do end up moving on, it is not unheard of for a player to decide to stay put. USC certainly has seen its fair share of transfer portal activity over the last year, including one player transferring from USC to Texas and back to USC all within this calendar year.
Williams appeared in all 12 games for USC as a true freshman, in which he caught four passes for 87 yards and a touchdown. Williams did not play in USC’s season-opening win against Fresno State but did make an appearance last weekend against Stanford. Williams caught one pass for 11 yards in the 45-20 victory for USC over the Cardinal.
While Williams has used one of his years of eligibility as a true freshman, he can still use the 2019 season as his redshirt year because he has not appeared in the limit of four games before burning a year of eligibility. If Williams transfers to another FBS program, he will have to sit out the 2020 season, burning a year of eligibility in the process without any waiver approval from the NCAA. That would leave Williams with two years of eligibility beginning in 2021 with another FBS program barring any waivers.