Roughly three years after enrolling at Fairleigh Dickinson as an overlooked high school recruit, Utah transfer Terrence Brown has some of college basketball’s biggest and most notable brands pursuing him in the transfer portal.

The 6-foot-3 guard who entered the portal and NBA draft process earlier this week is reportedly considering North Carolina, USC, Kansas, Kentucky, Oregon and Ole Miss for his fourth and final year of college hoops, according to a report from Jeff Goodman.

Put differently, three programs that just qualified for the NCAA Tournament and boast a combined 18 national championships, plus a couple of wealthy Big Ten schools and an SEC constituent that beat three postseason squads in as many days during its league tournament, are interested in a former Northeast Conference player who wasn’t ranked by the major recruiting services coming out of high school. That’s the transfer portal at work.

Now, here’s why those programs are interested in Brown.

Productivity

Let’s start with Brown’s side of things. He’s coming off a highly-productive 2025-26 campaign with the Runnin’ Utes, in which he became the first player in program history to record 600 points and 100 assists in a single season, all while leading the team in scoring (19.9 points per game), assists (3.8 per game), field goals made (223), free throws made (158) and steals (44).

To put Brown’s season into perspective: Of the nine other high-major players who can say they scored 600 points and led their team in assists this past season — Cameron Boozer (Duke), Darius Acuff Jr. (Arkansas), Bennett Stirtz (Iowa), Nick Boyd (Wisconsin), Labaron Philon (Alabama), Ebuka Okorie (Stanford), Josh Hubbard (Mississippi State), Tyler Tanner (Vanderbilt) and Bruce Thornton (Ohio State) — seven are projected to get picked in this year’s draft, with potentially four inside the top 16 according to Tankathon.com. The other two will either be a senior or have exhausted their eligibility.

For teams looking to fill major roster holes, someone who faced the level of competition Brown did in the Big 12, and put up the kinds of numbers he did in the process, is essentially impossible in this market. That’s largely why he’s considered by 247Sports to be the No. 8 combo guard and the No. 41 overall transfer at the moment; there’s no high-major player in the portal, right now, who was as productive as Brown was in 2025-26.

Obviously, Brown’s contributions didn’t prevent Utah’s 10-22 season from happening. He certainly wasn’t the main culprit behind the Utes’ struggles, though his tendency to force the issue often put him and the team in some unfortunate spots.

Still, it’s not a surprise Brown and his representatives have decided to shop his name around on the open market following his one-year stay in Salt Lake City. (He made a similar jump after scoring 20.6 points per game as a sophomore at Fairleigh Dickinson). It looks like that choice is just one more decision away from paying off in a big way.

Nature of the Portal

“Roster fit” doesn’t feel like the right phrasing, given most rosters have been gutted by portal entries in the last week. Filling a team need is part of fitting in with a new group, though, and judging by Brown’s list of finalists, he’ll likely provide a major boost to whichever backcourt he decides to join.

Of the six teams mentioned in Goodman’s report, USC is perhaps the only one that has a chance of bringing back some of its backcourt rotation from last season. The Trojans are on pace to lose Jerry Easter II, Jordan Marsh and E.J. Neal to the portal, though it looks like Rodney Rice, who was part of USC’s loaded 2025 portal class, is on track to return to Los Angeles after missing all of last season due to injury.

If Rice does indeed decide to stick around for his senior year, USC could bring Brown in as a nice pairing next to Rice as a true “2” guard.

Regardless of where Brown ends up, the five other schools have more retooling to get done this offseason. Oregon has to reload on guard depth with TK Simpkins (graduation), Wei Lin (portal) and Jackson Shelstad (portal) departing; Ole Miss has a few underclassmen ready to move up the chain of command, though Chris Beard and company are still set to lose AJ Storr, Ilias Kamardine and Kezza Giffa to graduation. The three bigger brands in North Carolina, Kansas and Kentucky have significant holes to plug as well.

TE Dallen Bentley

• Height: 6’4”
• Weight: 253 lbs
• Class: Senior
• School: Utah
• Hands: 9 ¼”
• Arm length: 33 ⅛”
• 40-yard-dash: 4.62s
• 10-yard-split: 1.62s
• Vertical Jump: 35”
• Broad Jump: 9’10”
• Short-Shuttle: 4.42s
• Bench Press: 24 reps
• STATS

A former four star recruit out of Taylorsville High School in Taylorsville, Utah, where he was the number one recruit from his state and the number one JUCO tight end during the 2023 recruiting cycle.

Bentley caught eight passes for 112 yards with two touchdowns at Snow College, which earned him the NJCAA All-American, second team honors.  

Bentley was Third-Team All Big-12 in 2025. He averaged 12.9 yards per catch with a 10.98 aDot in 2025, while taking 110 snaps (30.4%) out of the slot and securing just 26.7% of his contested catches (4 of 15).

He did have a fumble and he averaged 2.07 yards per route run. Bentley played 782 snaps in 2025 and 376 in 2024. He accepted an invite to the East-West Shrine Game.

Strengths

• Good size with excellent length length in a solid TE frame
• Good athlete with solid foot-speed and very good burst 
• Long strider 
• Some wiggle up his route stems
• Excellent adjustment on short throws away from his frame
• Fluid mover/adjuster to the football in the air near the sideline
• Good awareness in the flat near the sideline
• Excellent hands as a pass catcher 
• Above average blocker on the LOS – loses slow enough!
• Solid COMBO blocks on the first level
• Does well to work up to the second level – good angles 
• Very good play strength (when technique is dialed in)
• Generates good force on down/pin block
• Good get his hands on target quicker at the POA
• Solid YAC ability – runs through arm tackles
• Can align all over the formation: Y, slot, Wide

Weaknesses

• A bit lumbering as a deeper route runner
• Wish he was better at the catch point (low contested catch total)
• Must work back to the football more (deeper down the field)
• Must improve his catching through traffic
• Run game technique can improve 
• Could sustain blocks a bit longer – bring his feet with him
• Only one year of production
• Is already 25 years old

Coming off a really solid sophomore season, Utah lineman Spencer Fano quickly became someone who NFL draft analysts believed could be the No. 1 offensive tackle prospect in the 2026 class.

That buzz only grew louder as the Spanish Fork, Utah, native followed up his 2024 campaign with an even more impressive showing in 2025, solidifying his reputation as one of the best offensive lineman in college football.

Fano, who started all 12 games at right tackle, earned unanimous first-team All-American honors and took home the Outland Trophy after allowing just five pressures, five hurries and no sacks in over 350 pass-blocking opportunities. In addition to keeping the Utes’ quarterbacks upright, he paved the way for an offense that rushed for 266.3 yards per contest (No. 1 among power conference teams) as Utah amassed a school-record 3,462 yards on the ground in across 13 games. The Utes also scored 41 rushing touchdowns, which was tied for the second-most in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

Fano did all that after garnering All-America recognition from Pro Football Focus, the Associated Press and Walter Camp in 2024.

Between all personal accolades and team stats Fano helped generate in the 37 games he played in, the Timpview High School (Utah) product compiled quite the résumé in his three seasons at Utah, the school he committed to as a four-star recruit in the class of 2023. Though, as far as his potential fit in the NFL is concerned, there’s still some debate among draft analysts centered around his size and skillset.

Here’s what a few NFL draft experts have said and written about Fano in the lead up to the 2026 NFL Draft (April 23-25).

Skillset Analysis

There’s a lot that goes into scouting offensive tackles — it’s much more than just ‘Hey, he pushes other guys around really well.” While strength is an important part of playing the position, there are several other athletic and physical traits that play a role, like hip movement, feet placement and core control, to name a few.

Arm length is another important characteristic for offensive lineman. Typically, the average tackle measures in with 34-inch arms. During the NFL combine in Indianapolis, Fano check in with 32 1/8-inch arms, sparking discussions in draft circles over whether he was a better fit at tackle or guard at the next level (more on that later).

What seems to be less of an argument, though, is just how gifted Fano is as an athlete. His athleticism score of 93, which ranked No. 1 among all tackle prospects at the combine, demonstrated as much.

“[Fano’s] really, really quick,” said NFL draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah during an appearance on Peter Shrager’s podcast. “He can really go out and pick off corners, he’s really, really athletic. There’s a lot to really like about him.”

One of the aspects of Fano’s game that stands out to The Ringer’s Mel Kiper Jr. is how technically-sound he was this past season.

“He has a rare ability to recover when he gets into a bad spot,” Kiper wrote in his evalutation of Fano for The Ringer. “He works his hands inside and anchors well enough. He can set high and his base narrows.”

Of course, Fano isn’t a perfect prospect (those just don’t exist). Because of his arm length, he isn’t always able to keep defensive ends at-length like some other top-notch prospects can.

“There’s just times because of his lack of length, you’ll see guys get into his chest a little bit,” Jeremiah said. “He might get bold at times, but he’s incredibly smart, aware. The character makeup stuff’s great.”

Tackle or Guard?

Fano’s arm length has some wondering if he’d be a better fit at guard or center in the NFL, as opposed to the position he spent his entire college career, tackle.

Perhaps wisely, Fano went through drills with both tackles and centers during the skills-testing portion of the combine, giving scouts even more opportunities to see his athleticism and potentially determine whether he’d be better served at tackle or guard at the next level.

“His athletic profile is designed for move-based blocking schemes where he can pull, reach and climb while beating opponents to the spot with quickness/feel for hitting landmarks on time,” wrote NFL analyst Lance Zierlein in his assessment of Fano. “He gives good effort as a downhill blocker but issues with pad level and core strength lead to him being overtaken as the rep progresses.”

By all accounts, Zierlein’s projection of Fano’s best scheme fit sounds like one that has him playing on the interior. Usually, it’s guards who are tasked with pulling and getting to the second level in the run game, especially if they’re particularly fast and athletic. And because Fano was open about moving to guard during combine interviews, the team that drafts him might be apt to playing him on the inside.

“Fano has the traditional athletic profile of a left tackle, with experience playing on the left side — but the bulk of his experience comes at right tackle, and his short arms could cause him to kick inside,” Kiper wrote. “While he didn’t play on the inside in college, Fano has the traits to develop into an excellent center in the NFL.”

As Kiper dutifully points out in his evaluation, there are several examples of players who started their careers at tackle moving inside to play guard. Perhaps the best comparison to Fano is Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ 2022 second round pick, Luke Goedecke, who began his collegiate career as a tight end at Wisconsin-Stevens Point before developing into a tackle at Central Michigan. He moved to left guard to start his NFL career, though he’s started at right tackle the past three seasons and has played at a high level.

NFL Draft Ranking

Regardless of the position Fano settles into at the next level, it’s a consensus that he’s a first-round talent. Draft analysts at ESPN, CBS and PFF tab him as a top-four tackle prospect and don’t have him lower than No. 19 on their respective big boards. Kiper ranks him as the No. 2 tackle and the No. 12 overall player on his draft board.

Interestingly, Jeremiah is one of the few mock draft creators who lists Fano as an “IOL” (interior offensive lineman). Even so, Fano is the No. 13 prospect on Jeremiah’s 50-player big board.

On the NFL’s official website, Fano checks in with a prospect grade of 6.44, which is deemed as a someone who will become a good starter within two years.

“Fano’s short arms raise questions about his position fit and might hurt his draft value, but he is one of the top offensive linemen in this class and a top 15-20 player overall,” Kiper wrote.