The Alabama Crimson Tide’s Freshman Safety and 4-Star recruit, Peyton Woodyard, entered the Transfer Portal on April 29, 2024. Woodyard has one of the more interesting stories from this year’s Portal.
Woodyard was a part of Alabama’s 2024 Recruiting Class, but that’s not the full story of it. Woodyard committed early. He originally committed to the Georgia Bulldogs on January 7, 2023. After his commitment he took an unofficial visit to Georgia, as well as official visits to Georgia, USC, Ohio State, and on June 23 Alabama. About a month and a half later, Woodyard announced that he would decommit from the Dawgs and commit to the Crimson Tide.
Woodyard would then sign his letter of intent with Alabama on December 20, 2023 during the Early National Signing Day. He would enroll in classes on January 10, 2024.
Unfortunately for Woodyard, Coach Saban would retire that same day, January 10. The Spring Portal was not open at the time, but due to Coach Saban leaving it would be open for Alabama players to seek other opportunities. A handful of players entered their name in, but Woodyard was not one of them.
Woodyard stuck out his first semester on Campus and participated in Bama’s Spring Ball. The reports coming out of Tuscaloosa seemed positive about him too. One report said he should be poised for an impact role this season. In a post practice interview Bama Co-DC and Safeties Coach Colin Hitschler is quoted as saying “Peyton is working with the 2s right now, but he’s making a lot of plays. He’s grinding, he’s working, he’s focused. I love Peyton.”
In the spring game, Woodyard had a PBU that stopped the opposing offense and forced them to settle for 3. At the conclusion of the spring, many had Woodyard pinned as their Top Spring Freshman.
When Woodyard entered the portal he did so with a “Do Not Contact” Tag, which essentially meant he knew he was heading to Eugene all along. It’s not easy for us to speculate why Woodyard would transfer out. He’s in, as we mention in our King Mack article, a fairly shallow Alabama Safety room. The only person we assume has a starting spot locked up is Malachi Moore, since he’s been a key piece for years now. Despite Woodyard working with the 2’s we would assume he would’ve had a chance to compete to start or at least for valuable play time as a true frosh. Not to mention it was for a program that year-in and year-out seems to be in a National Title hunt, and Coach DeBoer is coming off a Natty run of his own at Washington. Unless the culture that Saban preached to him in his recruitment is that much different than what DeBoer does it’s odd to see a player leave a program this early, especially with all the love and praise he’s received.
People are going to tell us, well it’s obvious he got drawn away by NIL. Yes, you’re right, that’s the obvious answer, but knowing Dan Lanning’s background and the coaches he’s worked under(Saban and Smart) we really don’t think that was the primary reason. Yes, I’m sure Coach Lanning uses NIL just like everyone else, especially with Nike HQ in Oregon, but we don’t think it’s the forefront of what he preaches when he recruits.
As we stated earlier, he was originally committed to Georgia. With Dan Lanning taking the Oregon HC position in December of 2021 we have a hard time seeing how the timeline of Lanning recruiting for Georgia and Woodyard still being in HS lineup, but Georgia did offer Woodyard on June 4, 2021. So maybe there’s a connection that dates back.
Woodyard did take an unofficial visit to Oregon on April 9, 2022 just a little under 4 months after Lanning took the job. Not to mention Lanning offered him just 4 days after his unofficial. It could very well be that Lanning and Woodyard had a long standing, good relationship dating back.
If Woodyard values play time over everything, he could’ve seen a more direct path to starting as a true freshman at Oregon than at Alabama. Not to mention Lanning is building something special in Eugene. We even predict that they will win the Big 10 in their first year in the conference.
As you can tell it’s not super easy to pinpoint the primary reason for his portal decision, but regardless expect to be talking about this kid very, very soon!