Michigan Football: Wolverines are favorite for transfer portal DT

Michigan football offered Jordan Whittley shortly after the defensive tackle entered the transfer portal and now it looks like the favorite to get him. 

It sounds like Michigan football is about to get some help from the transfer portal and it’s likely to come at the biggest position of need — defensive tackle.

The defensive tackle in question is Jordan Whittley, who just entered the transfer portal earlier this week from Oregon State. And once he did, the Wolverines offered soon after.

A few other teams have jumped in the mix after Michigan football, including West Virginia, Kansas State, Utah State, Louisiana Tech, and New Mexico State, but according to Chris Balas of The Wolverine, U-M is the team to beat.

"“The Wolverines are the heavy favorite at this point to land 6-1, 358-pound defensive tackle Jordan Whittleyfrom Oregon State out of the portal. He didn’t play in 2020 and recorded only 13 tackles and three tackles for loss for the Beavers in 2019, but the former running back (yes, really) is big and agile, hard to move and takes up a lot of space.”"

Whittley is listed by 247 sports as 6-foot-2, 333 pounds and as Balas alluded to, he was a running back in high school.

After transferring from JUCO to Oregon State, Whittley didn’t play last season for the Beavers. Yet, back in 2019, he racked up 13 tackles in nine games, including three tackles for loss.

While there are some other teams in the mix, Michigan football is by far the biggest name, and with the Wolverines need on the defensive line, it makes a ton of sense.

Finally a transfer portal addition

Michigan football did add quarterback Alan Bowman through the portal, yet the Wolverines haven’t been able to add anybody at linebacker, defensive line, or secondary.

Whittley would be the first defensive player to join Michigan from the portal but not the first one interested in doing so. Here’s what Balas wrote about some other misses.

"We’ve explained what happened with Lance Dixon (PSU, now at WVU) … the same thing happened with another former highly-rated linebacker who transferred to a Big Ten school. He wanted Michigan and U-M was certainly at least interested, but even the coaches knew they had no shot when they saw his transcripts. It wasn’t about grades, but the ‘classes’ he was taking."

Academic issues caused Michigan to miss out on a couple of players who could have helped the Wolverines next season, including 2021 signee Xaiver Worthy, who asked out of his NLI.

It doesn’t seem like there are any issues with Whittley and if the Wolverines are able to add him to their front seven, it would be a win, especially with the lack of depth at nose tackle.