Former Penn State football wide receiver KeAndre Lambert-Smith is set to visit several SEC programs this weekend, according to multiple reports on Wednesday night. The visits are expected to start on Thursday with a trip to Auburn, followed by a visit to Texas A&M later in the weekend. Lambert-Smith is viewed as one of the top players in the transfer portal after stepping away from the Nittany Lions program last week.
KeAndre Lambert-Smith to visit Auburn, Texas A&M this weekend
After having his name officially on the transfer portal market for less than 72 hours, KeAndre Lambert-Smith is already set to take his first round of visits this weekend.
Per Matt Zenitz of 247Sports, Lambert-Smith is expected to visit with Auburn Thursday through Saturday. From there, the ex-Nittany Lion will travel to College Station for a visit with Texas A&M. This report was quickly confirmed Wednesday by Pete Nakos of On3.
Auburn and Texas A&M were among the first programs to reach out to KeAndre Lambert-Smith earlier in the week. According to reporting from Nakos, Georgia, Colorado, USC, and Miami were among other programs to express interest. However, Nakos expressed earlier in the week that West Virginia felt confident of its chances of bringing Lambert-Smith across the sideline for the 2024 season opener.
However, the pair of SEC visits highlights an interesting dynamic of the spring transfer portal window. Per the SEC’s own conference guidelines, any player transferring within the conference during the spring is ineligible to play in the fall, giving SEC teams an incentive to bring in talent from outside the conference.
More to come for Penn State football?
Outwardly, it’s been a quiet first week of the transfer portal window for James Franklin and the Nittany Lions. In addition to KeAndre Lambert-Smith, Penn State football lost a second wide receiver, Malick Meiga, to the portal.
While losing the program’s top wide receiver from a year ago has been described as a “nightmare scenario” by some, it certainly hasn’t been the mass exodus of talent that many expected the spring portal window to be.
At least, not yet. Schools have a 48-hour “cooling off” period to officially enter names in the transfer portal once players have given notice of their intention to leave. So, it’s quite possible that, for Penn State football and the sport overall, things start to heat up later in the week.
The spring transfer portal window closes on April 30.
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