6 biggest winners from 2023 college football transfer portal

1. Colorado football

There isn’t a team that had a more drastic makeover this offseason in college football than the Colorado Buffaloes who hired Deion Sanders as the head coach.

Coach Prime was extremely active and signed 19 recruits in the 2023 class, as well as 25 transfers, meaning Colorado football has picked up 44 new scholarship players. The limit is 85.

247 sports ranked Colorado’s class of 25 as No. 1 and one reason for that is the sheer number of players. Many of them are rated as three stars. Seven of them are blue chips (4-stars or better) but when you are taking over a one-win team, you need to upgrade the talent and depth.

Sanders did a great job of filling needs but the biggest addition was former No. 2 overall recruit Travis Hunter, who flipped from Florida State to Jackson State in the 2022 class. Now, Hunter will play at Colorado, which would never have happened before.

The Buffaloes also added a dynamic quarterback in Shedeur Sanders — Deion’s son. Sanders and Hunter are two of seven Jackson State transfers to Colorado. The others outside Sanders and Hunter were all rated as three-star prospects.

But just adding a big-time QB and a five-star talent is massive for Colorado football. The Buffs also added LB Demouy Kennedy (Alabama), CB Kyndrich Breedlove (Ole Miss), EDGE Taylor Upshaw (Michigan), WR Jimmy Horn Jr. (South Florida), and a number of others from power leagues that will upgrade the depth of the program right away.

Not all the moves are splashy, but it’s exactly what’s needed to get Colorado football back to playing winning football which Coach Prime hopes to deliver in 2023.