FCS Daily Dose: Does Transferring To The FBS Increase An FCS Player’s Draft Stock?

The FCS Daily Dose is a blog-style article series featuring an assortment of news, rumblings, quick-hitters, and commentary on various topics. A new Daily Dose will publish multiple times a week to keep the FCS discussion going throughout the long offseason.

For March 15, 2024, let’s talk about…

Does Transferring To The FBS Increase An FCS Player’s Draft Stock?

As talked about earlier this week in the FCS Daily Dose, there are many reasons why players enter the transfer portal. Coaching change, playing time, being closer to home, grad transfer, trying to play at a higher level, etc.

Another reason for FCS-to-FBS transfers is to improve their NFL Draft stock.

Following the FCS, the portal, and the NFL Draft selections over the years, though, I’m not sure the numbers are there to show transferring to the FBS is improving many draft stocks.

Now, real quick, people around this time ask how FCS draft selections are counted for players who transfer. There isn’t really an official way to do it, but outlets like Stats Perform, FCS Insider, The Bluebloods, and HERO Sports have done it this way: If a player plays multiple seasons in the FCS and then plays his final season in the FBS, he will be counted as a draft pick from the FCS. If an FCS player transfers and then plays multiple years in the FBS, he won’t be counted.

Examples:

Jared Verse looks to be a 2024 first-round draft pick. He played two seasons at UAlbany before starring at Florida State in 2022 and 2023. He will not be counted as a draft pick from the FCS.

In the 2023 draft, Kobie Turner was selected in the third round. He spent five years at Richmond before transferring to Wake Forest in 2022 for his final year. I think it’s more than fair to count him as a draft pick from Richmond and the FCS.

Last year, I saw someone comment that the FCS is just juicing its numbers by counting transfers to the FBS. But again, the numbers show that’s not really the case.

In 2019, there were 14 players counted as draft picks from the FCS. Only one was an FCS-to-FBS transfer. There were six draft picks in 2020 and no transfers counted, six picks in 2021 with one transfer counted, 24 in 2022 with four transfers counted, and 11 picks last year with one transfer counted.

Let’s look at this year’s draft.

There were more than 300 FCS-to-FBS transfers for the 2023 season. Zero of them are ranked in Draft Scout’s Top 360 prospects for the 2024 draft. Of course, not all of the 2023 FCS-to-FBS transfers were seniors. But there were still plenty of guys who played their last season at the higher level. And none of them appeared to move their stock into being draft picks, at least in this ranking.

There are a few FCS-to-FBS transfers from earlier years in Draft Scout’s Top 360: Jared Verse was a 2022 transfer from UAlbany to Florida State. Malik Mustapha was a 2021 transfer from Richmond to Wake Forest. Tanner McLachlan was a 2022 transfer from Southern Utah to Arizona. Prince Pines was a 2022 transfer from Sam Houston to Tulane.

So there are 22 FCS players on Draft Scout’s Top 360, zero 2023 FCS-to-FBS transfers (who would be counted as draft picks from the FCS), and four FCS-to-FBS transfers from earlier years (who won’t be counted).

Only one 2023 FCS-to-FBS transfer was invited to the 2024 NFL Combine out of the 15 invites: OL Nick Gargiulo from Yale to South Carolina, and he was a grad transfer.

Folks have pointed to the lowering number of draft picks from the FCS due to the transfer portal. That may be a small reason for it. But it’s not like there’s been a long list of FCS-to-FBS transfers in recent drafts.

It seems one trend is that NFL teams are more comfortable taking power-league guys in the later rounds and waiting to grab draftable FCS players in undrafted free agency. Last year, nearly 80 FCS players signed UDFA contracts.

The number of draft picks from the FCS has always fluctuated. The low numbers in 2020 and 2021 can be taken with a grain of salt since COVID-19 impacted an important predraft process for small-school guys. The number dropped from 24 picks in 2022 to 11 in 2023. It dropped from 24 in 2008 to 15 in 2009. After 28 FCS/D1-AA players were selected in 2000, the subdivision saw mid-teens from 2003-2007. In the late 2010s, the number went from 20 to 15 to 19 to 14.

This year, it’ll likely be somewhere in the mid-teens.

I won’t begrudge an FCS player for trying to better their situation and entering the portal. Just like I’ve said I’m not going to say a school made the right or wrong decision moving up to the FBS.

However, I do think it’s important to show that transferring to the FBS has helped a very small pocket of players and their draft stocks. And from an earlier article I did on how 2023 FCS-to-FBS transfers performed, only 38% of the transfers started at least half of their games played at their new school. And of those 2023 transfers who were 2022 FCS all-conference players, only about 50% started at least half of their games played at their new school.

In other words, there have been many FCS standouts departing to be FBS role players without seeing much, if any, difference in their NFL Draft stock.

It’s also important to point out for the “FCS is the new JuCo” crowd that while many FCS standouts are leaving for the FBS, it is not a dash to the portal. Around 85% of FCS all-conference players with eligibility remaining returned to their team in 2023.

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