A player could have entered the transfer portal this spring in a few limited ways. Either the player’s head coach would have to be fired, or the player would have to obtain an NCAA waiver. For a UCLA QB, none of it was required, and yet he entered the transfer portal last week. Now, the former 3-star QB has landed with an FCS program.

According to reports, former UCLA QB Karson Gordon has signed with Austin Peay, where he will play football and compete in track and field. He committed to UCLA on November 7, 2023, under head coach Chip Kelly and enrolled in June 2024. Ever since then, he hasn’t appeared in a game for the team, at least in football. But still had some showing in track and field. That dual-sport talent was the reason Gordon could enter the portal last week.

“I am very thankful for my time as a dual-sport athlete at UCLA,” Gordon wrote on X after he entered the portal. “I have made relationships here that will last me a lifetime. And I am officially in the transfer portal as a dual sport QB/ATH and Triple Jumper. I have not committed to a school yet.”

This year, college football effectively eliminated the spring transfer window and shortened the January window to just 15 days. In the absence of an open window, Karson Gordon used his dual-sport category to enter the track-and-field transfer portal last week. Track and Field athletes still have two windows in a year. One of them is the 30-day period after Division I track and field championships. The other one opened on May 28 and will remain open until June 26.

The redshirt sophomore didn’t compete in the 2026 indoor track-and-field season due to injury. Last year, though, he had entered two indoor meets. There, he hit a personal record in the triple jump and was in UCLA’s all-time indoor top-10 list. Despite that showing, his season was cut short after he was injured and couldn’t appear at the February 8 events. As for Karson Gordon’s football talent, he has the potential to chart an exciting trajectory with Austin Peay.

A native of Missouri City, Texas, Gordon was a standout dual-threat QB at Episcopal High School in Houston, where coaches started recruiting him as early as when he was 12. Playing for his high school team, Gordon was a menace to the opposing defenses. As a junior in 2022, he completed 158 of his 250 passes for 2,157 yards while rushing for another 699 yards for a total of 36 touchdowns. UCLA couldn’t quite afford to pass up his unrelenting talent.

Karson Gordon’s UCLA career is a casualty of program instability

2023 was even better for Gordon, as offers started lining up due to his performances. In that year, he led Episcopal to a TAPPS 4A State Championship and quickly received offers from schools such as Boston College, Northwestern, Texas Tech, UNLV, and others. By all accounts, he was a top athlete in the state of Texas and was even present in 247 Sports’ 2024 freaks list. It took no time for Chip Kelly to seal his commitment.

“Chip Kelly and the experience he has on multiple levels stood out to me at first,” Gordon said about his commitment to ON3 in 2023. “As a QB getting recruited, his name is just one of the names you know from being in the game a long time and having success. Also, from the education to the campus life to athletic life, UCLA feels just like my high school experience at Episcopal, just on a much larger scale, of course.”

Unexpectedly, though, Chip Kelly stepped down as the Bruins’ head coach in February 2024 to become Ohio State’s offensive coordinator. Even though Gordon remained committed and eventually enrolled at UCLA, it seemed to be because of the program’s athletics team. New head coach DeShaun Foster didn’t really include him in his plans in his true freshman season and even initially in 2025, before the program fired him. It appears now that he isn’t in new head coach Bob Chesney’s plans either, and a transfer decision makes sense.

Austin Peay reached a major crossroads when it joined the newly rebranded United Athletic Conference in 2026. The program will officially leave its former Atlantic Sun Conference in July this year and will have four more members in its new conference welcoming it. Hopefully, Gordon will finally showcase his Power-4 potential and chart a move back to a Power-4 program in 2027.