The strangest transfer story of 2026 starts with a loophole
· Yahoo Sports
Unattached. A man without a team.
In track season.
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In his upcoming college football season? Former three-star prospect and ex-UCLA signee Karson Gordon is preparing to play for FCS program Austin Peay.
“He’s a unicorn,” Austin Peay’s third-year coach Jeff Faris said.
On the heels of the NCAA’s first modern-era foray into a single transfer portal window for college football players, which ran from Jan. 2-16, 2026, Gordon is enrolling at Austin Peay following his late-spring departure from UCLA because of his savvy in examining the system.
Next track season, Gordon — a former Gatorade Texas State Boys Track and Field Player of the Year in 2022-23 — is preparing to run, essentially, as a one-man independent.
He’s particularly strong in the triple jump.
Before then, Gordon is preparing to suit up for the Governors, residents of the United Athletic Football Conference. Following a 2024 redshirt season and missing 2025 with injury, Gordon could potentially have four seasons of football eligibility.
“The relationships I established in L.A. will still last me a lifetime, but we did some research on the different transfer portals,” the 6-1, 180-pound quarterback/wideout told USA TODAY Sports. “(I) talked to UCLA, NCAA Compliance and got the green light to do what I did. It’s just using the rules to my advantage.
“I hopped in (to the portal) as a track athlete. As long as Karson Gordon is in the portal, and as long as a team has a roster spot for me — if I wanted to play baseball somewhere, all I need is a roster spot — it’s kind of a nuance. We used the rule book.”
Due to preexisting relationships in Gordon’s recruitment, Faris, offensive coordinator Quinn Billerman and the Govs now are preparing to deploy Gordon into an Austin Peay program among the first teams out of the 2025 FCS Playoffs field.
“I think the relationships were the key factor, with our staff and his family and him having come from a place where we have great relationships, him visiting us at UCLA,” said Faris, a former Bruins assistant under then-head coach Chip Kelly. “In fact, when I got the job at Austin Peay, one of the first people to text me congratulations was Karson Gordon.
“So, when he got into the portal, we were immediately interested.”
Like Gordon, the Govs did their due diligence from a compliance and legality standpoint — since getting rid of football's spring portal was designed to limit roster churn to a single timeframe.
“We spoke with the NCAA, our conference office, compliance in this new landscape to make sure he could pursue both avenues here,” Faris said. “Everybody came back with no doubt this is a great opportunity to compete in both sports here at Austin Peay.
“For us, we had the No. 3 portal class in FCS and now to add a piece like Karson this late, we know the kind of person we’re getting, which is what we’re most excited about. He’s going to make our culture stronger and be a good leader for us.”
That’s the football component for Gordon and the Govs.
Here’s how the track and field competition works: Gordon will enter into and attempt to qualify for a variety of NCAA-sanctioned and international track meets during that sport’s season. By running unattached, he cannot win or amass points to compete for an NCAA national championship — but he also can seek an international path, potentially to professional status, while he competes.
“Definitely a nuance being a trailblazer, just certain meets I can basically walk up and pay and compete in,” said Gordon, a former triple jump national champion at the Nike National Outdoors. “I have to have certain times and distances to get into those meets, the big ones like the Penn Relays and Texas Relays.
“But it’s a chance for elite competition and just very blessed to be in this position.”
A former player and assistant coach under David Cutcliffe at Duke, Faris points to his mentor’s influence in welcoming Gordon, deep into recovery from an ACL injury, into the Govs.
“He’s not just a college track athlete; he is a high, high-level track athlete who will put on different cleats when he suits up for the Govs,” Faris said. “Being with coach Cut, he wanted the best players on his team. Talked about Todd Helton playing baseball and football at Tennessee, all the great Vols football players who ran track.
“Karson puts that time in. I’d rather have guys who want to compete and play multiple sports. I like that we have a guy with elite track numbers now on our football team.”
A unicorn.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The strangest transfer story of 2026 starts with a loophole