The revolving door of the transfer portal has reached Elon University Football as the program has lost key defensive players to the portal, as well as adding five transfers after the winter transfer window opened Dec. 9.
All six transfer losses were expected to start next year. The losses include former All-American Caleb Curtain, linebacker Marco Patierno, defensive lineman Chuck Nnaeto, edge rusher Cazeem Moore, linebacker Brandon Tyson and tight end Cody Hardy. Curtain and Moore were anchors of the 2024 defense that the program will need to fill through the portal and the incoming class of 14 freshmen.
Curtain transferred to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Patierno went to Eastern Michigan University, Moore headed to the University of Virginia, Tyson transferred to Georgia Southern University, Hardy went to North Carolina State University and Nnaeto went to Boston College University. All six players are moving up from the Football Championship Subdivision to Football Bowl Subdivision programs, a valuable promotion.
To fill these gaps in the defense, head coach Tony Trisciani added a number of transfers to the defense. The additions included defensive lineman Jared Kirksey from South Carolina State, linebacker Brodie Carroll from Shepherd University and defensive tackle Marcus Mauney from Norfolk State. Additionally, the team added quarterback Marco Lainez from Iowa and running back Jimmyll Williams from Virginia State.
Trisciani said he was excited about how all of these additions can immediately make an impact. He is particularly excited about the positional flexibility of Mauney. Mauney had 26 tackles last season, along with 2 sacks.
“Marcus Mauney is an experienced defensive tackle, but he’s also played defensive end so we would call him a swing guy,” Trisciani said. “We could play him at defensive tackle or defensive end if we needed to.”
Trisciani said he is also happy with the addition of Carroll, who comes to Elon as a redshirt sophomore and a year younger than the team’s outgoing linebackers, Patierno and Tyson. That youth will help solidify Elon’s linebacker core for the seasons to come. Carroll amassed 52 tackles, 7 tackles for loss and 2 sacks last season.
“He’s a really good player, rookie of the year in the PSAC, so he’s an experienced player and highly productive.
Lainez is also a key addition to an Elon quarterback room that is up for grabs following the graduation of Matthew Downing. Lainez could be a vital player for years to come as he is a redshirt freshman so he still has three years of eligibility remaining, a generous number for a transfer. Trisciani praised Lainez’s previous play at Iowa and in high school, but also said Lainez’s style of play meshes well with the system that newly hired offensive coordinator Doug Martin wants to implement.
“He’s a really good fit for our quarterback room because he's got some experience, played in the bowl game last year against Tennessee for Iowa and was the leading rusher,” Trisciani said. “He's a dual-threat quarterback, he can run and pass, which complements the skill set of our quarterbacks that we currently have in the room.”
Trisciani said the competition for the starting quarterback position is wide open to the group of Lainez, freshman Landen Clark, redshirt freshman Tanner Staton and redshirt sophomore Will Lankford.
According to Trisciani, Elon Football is a development program meaning that it aims to recruit high school players and keep them for four years as they develop. The transfer portal is also used sparingly as a supplemental tool.
“We will use it if we have a specific need at a position, or if we lose guys to the portal, we'll want to try to replace them with older players with experience,” Trisciani said. “I'm also very sensitive to the players in our program, because I don't want them to feel like they're working their way up the depth chart and then we're just sliding transfers in over their head every year.”
Trisciani is happy with the additions they made in the transfer portal but is also confident in the players that are currently on the roster. He cited the example of Curtain, who went from a backup rotational player to an All-American, as proof that he and the other Elon coaches can develop the next impactful player within the program.
However in a time of college athletics where the transfer portal is being used more than ever due to the rise of name, image and likeness deals, Elon will likely continue experiencing these yearly losses to the transfer portal. Elon University professor of sport management Shaina Dabbs said she believes Elon will need to be creative with their recruiting in the portal. She believes Elon will need to emphasize their educational model and experience in comparison to other universities when recruiting.
“Elon has to continue to be innovative in ways in which they can leverage some of the portal, while also creating NIL opportunities for their athletes,” Dabbs said. “I believe that you can meet athletes halfway with NIL and then leverage the portal when you absolutely need to, but that would also require Elon having graduate programs that a fifth year can come in and do.”
Dabbs said she believes developing athletes still needs to remain the main priority for a program on Elon’s scale but said they can use the portal by stressing the mission and educational experiences that set Elon apart.
The use of the transfer portal is on the rise after the permitting of unlimited transfer for athletes in April of 2021, and more than 11,000 NCAA football players entered in 2023-24. The number of FCS players who entered the portal in 2021 nearly doubled from 686 to 1,150 in 2023, according to NCAA transfer data. NIL collectives have only exacerbated the transfer portal’s increasing influence as athletes have begun to hire agents as coaches attempt to persuade athletes to transfer with the promise of lucrative NIL deals.
The mass departure of star players in the offseason is something Trisciani has come to understand as part of the system. He said he is happy for them and doesn’t blame them for leaving to play at a big-time program. Trisciani said it is a great opportunity for these players to go somewhere else and get paid a considerable amount of money — sometimes more than six figures — to play.
“The ideal situation is a player comes here, they redshirt, we develop them, they play, we graduate them in three and a half years, and they have another year of eligibility, they go to a Power Four program and with an Elon degree already, and then they get paid to play at the highest level,” Trisciani said.
However, Dabbs, a former collegiate student-athlete and Division I coach, believes that the portal’s emphasis on hopping from school to school to the highest bidder sends the wrong message and allows professionalism to the sport.
“Although the portal can be a positive thing, if you think of the portal as just an opportunity to move somewhere else, where is your commitment to that institution and your educational experience?” Dabbs said. “If the purpose of college athletics is the student experience and gives athletes an opportunity to compete at a high level, the transfer portal is really starting to tear away at that foundation of what college sports is all about.”