Schoffel: Transfer Portal is messy, but well worth the aggravation

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There's no way to know exactly what type of response NCAA officials were expecting when they launched their new "transfer portal" this past October, but it's a safe bet that they didn't anticipate anything quite like this.

In the three months since the database was opened, more than 1,000 Division-I football players have reportedly signed up. Hundreds of other student-athletes from other sports have registered as well.

You know about the high-profile players. The quarterbacks like Jalen Hurts, Justin Fields and Tate Martell. You might not know about the punters and the tight ends, the linemen and the defensive backs.

Penn State has at least four players in the system, including wide receiver Juwan Johnson, who caught 54 passes in 2017 before seeing his production drop off this past season. TCU has a punter listed. There's a running back from LSU. Players from Tennessee and South Carolina, Wyoming and Eastern Washington.

Locally, Florida State has seen four players dip their toes into the transfer waters. The first was tight end Alexander Marshall, followed by wide receiver D'Marcus Adams, defensive end Xavier Peters and running back Amir Rasul.

None of those were super surprising. Marshall just finished his second season at FSU and has yet to record a stat; I'm not sure he has set foot in a game. Adams and Peters were members of Florida State's 2018 signing class, and both were redshirted this past season.

Rasul is the only one of the four who has made a dent yet in the Florida State depth chart, and he actually saw his playing time diminish following the arrival of Willie Taggart. Rasul went from recording 33 carries as a sophomore in 2017 to just 10 this past season.

None of those players have to leave, of course. In fact, three of them have already indicated on social media that they plan to stay with the Seminoles in 2019.

Not long after word got out about Marshall being in the portal, he posted on Twitter that he had "unfinished business" at Florida State. Adams has made several posts indicating that he plans to remain a Seminole. And Peters has done the same.