When it comes to the high-stakes battle of acquiring talent through the transfer portal, two familiar faces in college football reign supreme (as they do in so many other facets of the sport).
SEC and Big Ten programs landed a disproportionate share of the most talented veterans looking for new homes this past offseason. Of the top 72 players in 247Sports’ transfer rankings, 51 ended up choosing a Big Ten or SEC school.
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That doesn’t mean difference-makers didn’t find their way to other leagues, though. Just look at the ACC.
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Coming off a run to the national championship game last season, and with a vast NIL war chest at its disposal, Miami brought in the nation’s No. 5 transfer class, which is highlighted by six of the top 75 players in the portal. Jeff Brohm continued to burnish his portal-raiding reputation by helping Louisville bring in the No. 13 class nationally.
One spot behind the Cardinals is California, where first-year coach Tosh Lupoi wasted little time upgrading the Golden Bears’ roster. At Virginia Tech, James Franklin showed off his recruiting prowess in his early months on the job, including bringing over several key contributors with him from Penn State.
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But what about the individual players? Who are some of the names and faces joining ACC programs who will shape the league’s 2026 season and play a role in the race for a conference title and a spot in the College Football Playoff?
Here’s a look at the top 10 impact transfers in the ACC heading into the 2026 season:
Most impactful transfers in ACC
Players are listed in alphabetical order
Just two years ago, Barkate was playing in relative obscurity as a first-team All-Ivy League selection at Harvard, but after a 1,000-yard effort in his first and ultimately only season at Duke in 2025, he became one of the most sought-after pass-catchers in the portal. He landed at Miami, where he’ll form one of the top receiver duos in the sport alongside sophomore phenom Malachi Toney and will offer a reliable and familiar target for new Hurricanes quarterback Darian Mensah, who he forged a wildly productive relationship with last season at Duke.
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Que’Sean Brown, WR, Virginia Tech
Just behind Barkate in the major receiving statistical categories at Duke was Brown, who racked up 846 receiving yards and five touchdowns for a Blue Devils team that won its first ACC championship game. He, along with a number of other transfers Franklin brought in, should offer an immediate boost for the Hokies, who finished tied for 113th of 136 FBS programs last season in scoring offense (at 21.4 points per game).
Mike Norvell enters the 2026 season on one of the hottest seats of any coach in the country, which gave him and his staff added incentive when looking for impactful additions in the portal. In Chaplin, they got just that … and at one of the most important positions in the sport. The fifth-year left tackle is a colossus, standing at 6-8 and 346 pounds. Over the past three seasons, first at Virginia Tech and then Auburn, he has started 37 consecutive games. The Seminoles have questions at quarterback, where journeyman Ashton Daniels looks like the probable starter, but they should have fewer concerns about who will be blocking his blind side.
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Franklin’s starting quarterback for his first Virginia Tech team will be a familiar one. After relieving the injured Drew Allar for the final seven games of Penn State’s ill-fated 2025 season, Grunkemeyer helped rally the Nittany Lions to a 4-3 mark as the team’s starter. During that time, he completed 68.9% of his passes for 1,234 yards, seven touchdowns and four interceptions, a run that included a near-upset of eventual national champion Indiana. With the Hokies, he’ll reunite with Franklin and offensive coordinator Ty Howle.
Georgia Tech will have to replace a program pillar in 2026 after losing quarterback Haynes King, who guided the Yellow Jackets to three consecutive bowl appearances. Their offense will be swapping out one Haynes for another. A Georgia Tech offense under new offensive coordinator George Godsey will be leaning heavily on Justice Haynes, who transferred to the Yellow Jackets after a stellar 2025 season at Michigan during which he ran for 857 yards and 10 touchdowns while averaging an absurd 7.1 yards per carry. The Atlanta area native spent his first two college seasons at Alabama, where he ran for 616 yards and nine touchdowns while averaging nearly six yards per carry.
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Few quarterbacks in the country are more intriguing than Cal’s Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele. After a promising freshman season, he got a little help from his new coach in the portal, with the Golden Bears bringing in Hendricks following a decorated junior season at Ohio. There, the St. Louis native had 1,037 receiving yards (the 16th-most in FBS) and seven touchdowns last season. In Berkeley, he’ll be tasked with replacing the output of another 1,000-yard receiver in Jacob De Jesus, a second-team All-ACC selection in 2025.
Darian Mensah, QB, Miami
Miami quarterback Darian Mensah speaks to the media during ACC Media Days at Hilton Charlotte Uptown.
There will be few, if any, players who will be more closely watched in the ACC next season than Mensah, who’s playing the highest-profile position for the conference’s top program and doing so after a contentious transfer process. The hype around him is justified. Last season at Duke, he threw for 3,973 yards, 34 touchdowns and just six interceptions, earning him a spot on the All-ACC second team.
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In two college seasons (he played in 2024 at Tulane), he has 56 touchdowns to just 12 interceptions. In Coral Gables, he’ll be well-positioned to succeed, with Toney and Barkate to throw to while playing behind what should be another one of coach Mario Cristobal’s traditionally excellent offensive lines. It’s rare that a team can make a national title game and then upgrade at quarterback, but for as good as Carson Beck was at times last season, the Hurricanes might have managed to do just that with the preseason ACC player of the year.
While Diego Pavia understandably got much of the attention while helping lead Vanderbilt to its best season in program history last year, Richardson played an awfully big role, too. The 5-10 speedster was Pavia’s most productive target, bringing in a team-high 806 receiving yards and seven touchdowns. Louisville has a relatively unproven quarterback in Ohio State transfer Lincoln Kienholz, but Richardson should give him a proven pass-catcher in Brohm’s typically high-scoring offense.
Thompson was one of the few bright spots for North Carolina in a dismal debut season under coach Bill Belichick, recording seven sacks for a defense that showed promise at times despite the team’s 4-8 final record. He finished eighth in the ACC in sacks before making the intra-conference move to Louisville, where he’ll help form of one of the best edge-rushing duos in the sport alongside Clev Lubin, a preseason first-team All-ACC selection who racked up 8.5 sacks and 13.5 tackles for loss in 2025.
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Damon Wilson II, DL, Miami
The well-traveled Wilson, who will be playing his fourth college season at his third school, will play an integral role in determining how effectively Miami can replace the fearsome pass-rushing duo of Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor.
After a messy transfer from Georgia, where he spent his first two college seasons, Wilson showcased what made him a five-star recruit coming out of high school. In his first and only season at Missouri, the 6-4, 250-pound Florida native racked up nine sacks, the third-most of any SEC player. He’s Miami’s highest-rated transfer from its loaded portal haul, ranking eighth among all transfers, according to 247.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY Sports: 10 most impactful ACC transfers for 2026: Miami’s new QB headlines class
