CFB DeptHITS: Monday, January 13

We will get the news impacting depth charts heading into 2025. Let's continue our positional spotlight series looking at the linebacker position & finish up with Top/Bottom 5 portal hauls thus far...

Jan 13, 2025

Today, we’ll get back after things to get you caught up on the biggest news over the last 48 hours that will impact 2025 depth charts — primarily from the transfer portal. We will continue our transfer portal spotlight series and look closer at the linebacker position. We will finish up with more on our overall “talent churn” rankings in the portal thus far as we near 3,000 players we are tracking (49% of which are committed). We’ll try to get you to that “happy Monday” point.

[ Note: Numbers in the brackets are our player ratings, out of 20 ]

|||||| PLAYER NEWS AND NOTES

UNLV ::: The Rebels have picked up former Michigan QB Alex Orji [13.0]. Dan Mullen brings him in, though unlikely to unseat incumbent Hajj-Malik Williams who, for now, is still with the program. Orji does have two years of eligibility remaining and could be used in certain packages, similar to the latter part of his time with Michigan. Malik-Williams has his final year of eligibility coming up in 2025.

Texas ::: RB Jaydon Blue [14.4] announced his plans to leave early for the NFL. He really broke through given the opportunity with some injuries in the Texas backfield and responded with 113 carries for 562 yards and six scores. He leaves two years of eligibility on the table.

Southern Miss ::: WR Micah Davis [12.5] transferred out of Utah State following a solid 2023 campaign, grabbing 36 passes for 628 yards and six scores. He headed to Ole Miss where he was not able to get on the field consistently with so much talent there. He now heads to Southern Miss to join up on the resurgent Golden Eagles under Charles Huff. He joins quite a few former Marshall receivers also making the move. Expect to see him making an impact here in 2025.

UCLA ::: The Bruins get a commitment from WR Kaedin Robinson [13.3] (App State/UCF) to boost their rebuilt receivers corps. He joins Mikey Matthews [12.9] (Utah) and Jaedon Wilson [11.9] (Arkansas) to help ease the loss of J.Michael Sturdivant (Florida) and Logan Loya (Minnesota). Robinson has the potential to be the go-to guy here after a season that saw him grab 53 passes for 832 yards and two touchdowns in 2024 for the Mountaineers.

Notre Dame ::: The defensive line for the Fighting Irish has reinforcements coming already. They get a big commitment from DT Jared Dawson [15.5] coming in from Louisville. He didn't put up crazy numbers, but his player-level data shows he is well above average and should get into the rotation for the Irish in 2025, his final year of eligibility.

Kentucky ::: The Wildcats are making moves in the portal with some bigger names from bigger schools. Mark Stoops is also looking for some diamonds in the rough at the FCS level. They get a commitment from one of those, DE Mi'Quise Grace [13.3] from South Dakota. He'll make the jump to the SEC after racking up 64 total pressures, with 18 sacks in about 1.5 seasons with the Coyotes.

Colorado State ::: Fresh off the news of their top LB Chase Wilson's tranfer out to West Virginia, the Rams get their own portal pick-up and it may just be an upgrade. LB Jacob Ellis [13.6] is coming in from Iowa State looking for a lead role, after playing a smaller role (but an important one) for the Cyclones. He came to Ames via the JUCO route and now finds himself in a spot to become a leader on the Rams defense in 2025.

|||||| PORTAL SPOTLIGHT: LINEBACKER

Total LB Tracking: 228
LB Committed: 103 (45%)

Top 15 Portal Linebackers:

Notes:

LB Caleb Weaver is the top “get” at the linebacker position according to our ratings. He will spend his final season of eligibility at Duke, coming over from Sam Houston. A great pick up for Manny Diaz and that Blue Devils defense. He will impact many parts of the game, mainly in run defense and pass coverage, while leaving the pass rushing to his partners in crime. He was all over the field for the Bearkats and a similar presence should be expected in Durham in 2025.
LB Taariq Al-Uqdah is staying in the state of Washington, but trading in his maroon and silver for purple and gold; going from Washington State to Washington. Similar in mold to Weaver, Al-Uqdah is an all-around player who, while he didn’t record a sack in 2025, did get to the quarterback to force some errant throws and was all over the field in pass coverage. He even picked off three passes.
Former Sooner LB Lewis Carter is headed to Orlando to join Scott Frost’s Knights in search of a lead linebacker role. He played just 10.5 snaps for Oklahoma, buried in a super talented room. He looks to break free and see more of the field in 2025. He has two years of eligibility remaining.
The top remaining unsigned linebacker is also coming from Orlando, where Zavier Carter remains in the portal looking for his home. He was a former big-time recruit at LSU, where he played two seasons. He went to UNLV for a season before heading to UCF, where he did not play in 2024. He now enters for the portal for a third time and looks to make an impact equal to his hype and small sample of skills says he is capable of.

View CFBDepth.com Portal Tracker >

Top FIVE Linebacker Talent Churn:

Kansas +36.5
Baylor +28.5
Memphis +25.4
Wake Forest +22.6
UCLA +22.5

Bottom FIVE Linebacker Talent Churn:

TCU (-34.0)
UNLV (-37.2)
Utah State (-39.4)
Utah (-40.1)
Southern Miss (-55.6)

|||||| TOP & BOTTOM TALENT CHURN

As mentioned on our previous HITS post; we have posted our “Team Portal Talent Churn” rankings. This is designed to provide an overall look at how much talent is coming (and going) to give an idea of where some squads stand heading into 2025. We are just about halfway through the commitments, so still plenty of movement will happen with these, but we wanted to give you a glance at the top (and bottom) of these rankings at this point.