Alabama running back Trey Sanders entered the NCAA’s transfer portal on Tuesday, BamaOnLine confirmed. He will become the third Crimson Tide player to make a transfer during the 2022 season.
Sanders, a redshirt junior, is listed as a grad transfer.
Sanders has played nine games for Alabama this season and 26 in his career. He was the Tide this fall‘s fourth running back behind Jahmyr Gibbs, Jase McClellan and Roydell Williams and has 80 yards and a touchdown with 14 carries. He rushed for 528 yards and three points on 116 tries in the 2020-22 campaigns at UA.
sanders‘ Time in Tuscaloosa, Alabama was plagued by injuries, initially missing the entire 2019 season and then suffering a hip injury in a car accident that cut short his 2020 season. He recovered in 2021 and acted as Brian Robinson‘s backup following injuries to McClellan and Williams and recorded his best stats season in college with 314 rushing yards to 72 deaths.
“I can’t be specific here and tell you the extent of all the injuries that he’s had, but they’ve all been pretty significant,” head coach Nick Saban said on Sept. 6, 2019. “And there was a point where I think he asked and many of us questioned if he would really be able to come back?Because of his persistence and resilience to keep working the way he did, that was what allowed him to come back.
“And when you see a player going through adversity like that, it certainly makes them strong as a person, but it also gives you a great feeling when you see them come back and do well in the game, get a touchdown and have some positive plays . Certainly for him it must also be a great confidence booster.
Sanders, a former IMG Academy 5-Star recruit, was the #1 running back and #6 full-year in the 2019 cycle, according to the industry-compiled 247Sports Composite.
The NCAA’s transfer portal, launched in October 2018, allows college student-athletes to simply enter their name into an online database and wait for college teams to contact them. It is also worth noting that players can also withdraw their names from the transfer portal.
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Sanders is the third Alabama player to enter the transfer portal this season, alongside defenseman Braylen Ingraham and placekicker Jack Martin. The Crimson Tide had 18 doing the same thing last year, with senior linebacker Jaylen Moody eventually deciding to return to Tuscaloosa.
*** This story will be updated.
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