Jake Garcia is back in the transfer portal, again. The former four-star quarterback is in search of his fifth different college football program in six years and his 11th different school in 10 years.
He does not stay in one place for very long!
Garcia may not be the oldest player in college football but his journey is among the most chaotic and inconsistent. His longest tenure at one single program was only two years.
Who is Jake Garcia?
The California-native was one of the most sought-after players in the recruiting Class of 2021. Garcia was ranked as one of the 10-best players at his position as a four-star prospect. Caleb Williams, Quinn Ewers and J.J. McCarthy were ranked ahead of him, among others. Drake Maye, Jaxson Dart, Jalen Milroe and Garrett Nussmeier were ranked below him, among others.
There was a lot of hype about Garcia’s potential but it never quite worked out at all of his different stops.
Originally from Whittier, Calif., he started at Long Beach Poly but his head coach left after his freshman season.
Garcia transferred to Narbonne High School in the Harbor City area of Los Angeles. However, he played only one season with the Gauchos. The program was ruled ineligible for the playoffs so he left.
That led him to La Habra High School in Orange County. And then the pandemic hit.
Transferring became a theme.
Garcia transferred for a third time when the California Interscholastic Federation cancelled all sports during the fall of 2021. This move was the most insane.
His parents had to legally separate as husband and wife so their son could be ruled eligible in a different state. Jake Garcia moved with his father to Georgia to enroll at Valdosta High School.
Although the true senior quarterback won the starting job at Valdosta, he started only one game. The school also had to forfeit that game because Garcia was retroactively deemed ineligible, which was documented by the Netflix documentary ‘Titletown High.’
That left him with no choice to transfer for a fourth time if he wanted to play that season. Even though Garcia was not eligible at Valdosta, weird GHSAA rules allowed him to be eligible at a different in-state high school right away. He landed at Grayson High School for the remainder of 2021. The Rams won a state championship with him as the starter.
And then it was off to college!
The college football carousel keeps spinning.
Jake Garcia committed to USC on Sept. 23, 2019. He decommitted from USC on Dec. 3, 2020 and signed with Miami on Dec. 16, 2020.
His two-year stint with the Hurricanes did not go as well as expected.
Garcia served as the third-string quarterback as a true freshman in 2021. He was the backup to Tyler Van Dyke as a redshirt freshman in 2022. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound signal-caller completed only 79 passes in two seasons with seven touchdowns and four interceptions in nine total games.
Van Dyke decided to return for 2023 so Garcia hit the portal for the first time. That led him to Missouri.
Jake Garcia was expected to compete for the starting job in Columbia but he did not take a single snap for the Tigers so he re-entered the transfer portal as a rising redshirt junior. He landed at East Carolina.
Although Garcia won the starting job, he threw four more interceptions than touchdowns and the Pirates went 3-3. Head coach Blake Harrell decided to bench him before halftime of a blowout loss to an awful Charlotte team. The opportunity to be the starter vanished. That was it.
Garcia re-entered the transfer portal during spring practice last April and committed to Michigan. At no point did he see the field for the Wolverines in 2025.
That leads us to present day.
It was announced this week that Garcia is back in the transfer portal with one year of eligibility remaining.
Whichever program ultimately receives his commitment will (probably) be the last stop of his college football career. It will be his 11th different school in nine years and his fifth different college in six years.