When it comes to transfer portal roster turnovers in Year 1, Colorado has gotten all the headlines. It was Deion Sanders who said he was bringing Louis Vuitton luggage with him to Boulder and that he couldn’t put new furniture in his house without removing the old stuff in regards to a roster restock. It’s worked for CU, which has started the season 2–0.
But the second-most dramatic transfer portal overhaul this season is in San Marcos, Texas, halfway between Austin and San Antonio, where Texas State and first-year head coach G.J. Kinne took 39 players from the transfer portal and 14 from high school to make for 53 scholarship newcomers (over half the 85 scholarship limit). It may not be Colorado-level in notoriety, but the Bobcats did produce a similarly unlikely Week 1 result by stunning Baylor as a 27-point underdog to win convincingly.
The Texas State story is one of a native son coming home. Kinne grew up the son of a high school coach in east Texas and played at Gilmer High School before going to the University of Texas and eventually transferring to Tulsa and playing for Gus Malzahn. He bounced around the NFL and the CFL before starting his coaching career, which culminated in 2022 with his first head coaching job at FCS Incarnate Word. In just one season, the Cardinals reached the FCS semifinals before losing to power North Dakota State. Kinne flew from Fargo to his new job in San Marcos to begin assembling a roster. He didn’t have much time, and he didn’t have many players either, as the early signing period neared at the end of December.
