The Pac-12 may not be able to stand up to other conferences like the SEC or Big Ten when it comes to College Football Playoff appearances, but there is one area of the game where there is no better conference in the nation than the schools out west.
When it comes to the transfer portal, nobody quite dominates like the Pac-12 does. According to the 247Sports transfer portal team rankings, four teams in the Pac-12 — Colorado, USC, UCLA, and Oregon — are ranked inside the top 10 nationally, and Arizona State ranks inside the top 15.
As the portal has become more prevalent in the world of college football, it’s increasingly important for teams to adapt and find ways to add some of the most talented players in the nation who are looking for a new team.
In the Pac-12, who has done the best job of that? It’s not the easiest question to answer, and not one that can be solved simply by looking at the portal team rankings. Deion Sanders and the Buffs might be ranked No. 1 and have added 25 transfers this off-season, but how many of those additions are blue-chip players who will make a difference right away?
In order to get an accurate answer to this question, we went to the 247Sports top 150 transfer portal player rankings to get a clearer view of things. Which Pac-12 teams gained the most in terms of top-150 players, and who lost the most?
For example, the Arizona Wildcats picked up Oregon LB Justin Flowe in the portal, but they lost WR Dorian Singer, CB Christian Rolland-Wallace, and DL Parish Shand. Thus their net gain in the portal for this exercise is -2, because they lost two more top-150 players than they gained. Make sense?
There are several instances where Pac-12 teams have an identical net-gain, so in those cases, we took the total ranking of players gained and compared who improved the most.
Let’s take a look at who has done the best when it comes to the transfer portal so far this off-season.