The new reality of college football is that you're always recruiting. It's not just recruiting new players out of the high school ranks or perusing the Transfer Portal, it's re-recruiting your own players, which is a near 365-day a year job.
Kalen DeBoer and Alabama football got a taste of that this week in a whirlwind 24-hours for 5-star freshman Jaylen Mbakwe.
Rumors started swirling early on Monday that another program had tampered with Mbakwe and put forth a 7-figure offer to get him to jump into the Transfer Portal with the promise of potentially letting him play both ways. The recent success and Heisman Trophy win for Travis Hunter would undoubtedly be appealing. That and a million dollars is a pretty easy sell.
On Monday afternoon, Mbakwe announced his intentions to enter the NCAA's Transfer Portal, signaling his exit from Tuscaloosa. The whirlwind was far from over as Alabama players - led by Mbakwe's close friend Ryan Williams - got involved and started putting on the full-court press to keep Mbakwe with the Crimson Tide.
When everyone went to bed on Monday night Mbakwe's status was completely up in the air. In the aftenroon on Tuesday, Mbakwe officially announced his decision to stay with Alabama and exit the portal.
Jaylen Mbakwe’s Insta story: pic.twitter.com/AsLTjWsW9d
— Charlie Potter (@Charlie_Potter) December 17, 2024
Mbakwe's decision to return to Alabama is as big of a Transfer Portal win that the Tide could get. There's no player in the portal Alabama is targeting that is as important as Mbakwe.
What will be interesting is the rumor that Mbakwe wanted to change positions from cornerback to wide receiver, and that was the impetus for him potentially looking around at other schools. With the Tide only having four healthy scholarship wide receivers for the ReliaQuest Bowl against Michigan, Mbakwe could get a tryout at the position in a live game in a couple of weeks.
He was one of the top athletes in the 2024 recruiting class and clearly the Crimson Tide liked the idea of him with the ball in his hands as he worked as one of the primary punt returns this season with Ryan Williams and Cole Adams.