Transfer Portal Winners and Losers: Why Iowa State Was Gutted While Texas Tech Loaded Up
The 2026 college football transfer portal has created clear winners and losers, and few programs sit further apart than Texas Tech and Iowa State. One reloaded for a run at the top of the Big 12. The other got picked clean and is starting over.
Texas Tech made the kind of splash that gets a fan base dreaming. The Red Raiders landed Brendan Sorsby, the top-ranked quarterback on the market, a move that instantly raises the ceiling for the entire program. When you win the most important position in the sport in the portal, you change the conversation around your season.
Sorsby is a proven, productive quarterback, exactly the kind of plug-and-play addition that can turn a good team into a contender. For a program that has been knocking on the door of the Big 12’s upper tier, this is the move that could kick it open.
Iowa State Got Hit Hard
On the other end of the spectrum is Iowa State, where new head coach Jimmy Rogers walked into a brutal situation. Almost every good player on the roster departed after Matt Campbell left for Penn State, leaving Rogers to rebuild from the studs.
That is the cruelty of the modern portal era. A coaching change does not just mean a new staff. It can trigger an exodus that strips a roster bare in a matter of weeks. Rogers is essentially starting a new program rather than inheriting a finished one, and the early returns are going to be painful.
The Portal Reshapes Everything
The numbers tell the story of how much movement there is. As of late May, thousands of players were in the portal, with the vast majority already committed elsewhere. Programs that work the portal aggressively, like Indiana under Curt Cignetti prioritizing starting experience, are building rosters on the fly while others scramble to fill holes.
This is the new reality of college football. Roster-building never stops, and a single offseason can transform a program for better or worse. The teams that master the portal win. The teams that get raided pay the price.
My take: Texas Tech is one of the offseason’s biggest winners and should be a Big 12 sleeper, while Iowa State is in for a long, ugly transition year. Jimmy Rogers may turn it around eventually, but 2026 is going to test the patience of everyone in Ames. The portal giveth, and the portal taketh away.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
