Penn State’s top target perfectly embodies transfer portal chaos in college football

Penn State head coach James Franklin has set his sights on USC transfer defensive lineman Bear Alexander in the transfer portal and the former five-star recruit visited Happy Valley as he searches for his third program in four years. 

Alexander committed to Georgia and played his first collegiate season in Athens after spending his four years of high school at four different schools. Then after one national championship season under Kirby Smart, he left for USC with Lincoln Riley, where he uncharacteristically stayed for two years, though he didn’t play both seasons. 

Alexander opted out of USC’s 2024 season, three games in, to preserve a redshirt year and two seasons of eligibility. To many, he’s a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the sport, and on his visit to Happy Valley, Alexanders gave that group of transfer portal haters brand new ammunition to use to condemn this era of player empowerment. 

The journeyman was pictured in a Penn State uniform, flexing his Georgia tattoo on his bicep. He’s not the first player with multiple allegiances, but the image is jarring to college football traditionalists who recoil at the sound of NIL and transfer portal. Despite his – we’ll say complicated – reputation around the sport, Alexander is still an impactful player and has drawn interest from many of the top programs in the country this offseason, including Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs. 

Penn State is still awaiting his portal decision as he has pointed out the Nittany Lions along with Oregon and SMU as his most likely landing spot. Franklin, who has stated that his program is finally taking an “aggressive” approach to the transfer portal, is likely hoping that Alexander can find a good tattoo artist in State College, PA to put a Nittany Lion on his other arm.