On Saturday night, Syracuse football freshman defensive lineman Quante Gillians from nearby Rochester, N.Y., said that he would enter his name into the transfer portal.
Gillians, a three-star prospect in the 2025 class and the No. 1 player coming out of New York state in that cycle, per 247Sports, appeared in two games for the Orange during the most recent campaign, registering one total tackle.
Excited to announce I will be entering the transfer portal with 4 years of eligibility remaining !! pic.twitter.com/AP4KYutVZn
— Quante Gillians 3⭐️ (@QuanteGillians6) December 28, 2025
On December 26, CBS Sports reported via X that Syracuse football redshirt senior wide receiver Umari Hatcher from Woodbridge, Va., who only appeared in one game this past season due to an injury, plans to enter the transfer portal, which will be open from January 2 to January 16.
Syracuse wide receiver Umari Hatcher (@HatcherUmari) is entering the transfer portal, his agent @JMags89 tells @CBSSports.
— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) December 26, 2025
Missed this season due to an injury but is fully cleared now and has career totals of 52 catches, 797 yards and seven touchdowns. pic.twitter.com/4rzi5PePTm
With Gillians and Hatcher planning to enter the portal, that means at least 23 players from the Orange's 2025 roster have elected to transfer, or at least explore the possibility of transferring.
The other 21 are:
Redshirt junior defensive back Greg Delaine
Sophomore running back Yasin Willis
Redshirt sophomore offensive lineman Joshua Miller
Redshirt sophomore linebacker James Heard
Sophomore running back Jaden Hart
Freshman quarterback Luke Carney
Freshman defensive back Ta'Ron Haile
Redshirt junior offensive lineman Carter Clark
Redshirt sophomore wide receiver Nick Armentano
Redshirt junior defensive back Jalil Martin
Redshirt freshman linebacker Fatim Diggs
Redshirt freshman wide receiver Jaylan Hornsby
Redshirt freshman wide receiver Emanuel Ross
Freshman defensive back Kaylib Singleton
Redshirt junior long snapper Ethan Stangle
Redshirt freshman quarterback Jakhari Williams
Sophomore linebacker Caden Brown
Sophomore running back/return man Malachi James
Redshirt freshman defensive back Ibn McDaniels
Redshirt senior linebacker Derek McDonald
Redshirt senior defensive lineman/tight end Chase Simmons
Don't worry about all the players leaving, Syracuse football fans.
So as more and more 2025 players announce that they plan to enter the portal in the coming days, that has caused some Orange fans to remark on social media and in chat rooms that they're concerned about the team's 2026 roster.
Trust me. It's all good. For one, tons of college programs are seeing similiar amounts of players transfer out.
Number two, after a poor 2025 term, head coach Fran Brown has shaken up his assistant coaching staff, and when that happens, oftentimes, players will depart. Furthermore, the 'Cuse has its highest-ranked prep class, in 2026, in the modern recruiting services era.
Furthermore, while I'm not a betting man, I'd bet that Brown and his staff are going to hit the portal extremely hard when it opens on January 2 and runs for 15 days. By extension, keep in mind that college football (and collegiate athletics in general) is in a whole new era, given direct revenue-sharing and third-party NIL deals, among other things.
All of this context leads me to believe that it shouldn't be a surprise that nearly two-dozen 2025 players on the Syracuse football roster are planning to transfer. Plus, if I'm being candid, many of the guys who plan to bolt weren't high-impact players this past stanza, and they could have been told, politely of course, by the Orange staff that it would be better for them to head to another school.