How Tulsa football won transfer portal by outside-the-box move into 'Portal House'
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TULSA — Off Utica Avenue four miles southwest of campus sits a charming home with a stone and vinyl facade accented by navy shutters. A bay window overlooks the semi-circle driveway. Brick steps and an iron railing lead to a blue front door with an “open” sign hanging from it.
It’s an entryway into college football’s new dimension.
Welcome to the Portal House — Tulsa football’s take on the Heisman House meets MTV Cribs meets frat house meets NFL draft war room.
For the past two weeks, ever since the sport’s 15-day transfer portal window opened, this 3,500 square-foot abode has served as Golden Hurricane HQ. It’s where Tulsa GM Mason Behiel has slept every night of the new year. Where head coach Tre Lamb and his staff have crunched film, courted players and crafted contracts.
There’s no setting as emblematic of this modern era of college football quite like the Portal House, the ultimate why didn’t we think of that idea that programs big and small will no doubt copy this time next year. (Tulsa, knowing this, is attempting to trademark the “Portal House” name.)
Lamb, giving a tour of the home Wednesday afternoon, walked to the fridge and cracked open a wild berry-flavored Poppi. He lifted the can.
“We’ve got all kinds of people sending us stuff,” Lamb said.
Everyone wants a piece of the now-viral Portal House, which Tulsa football reserved on Airbnb. It has five bedrooms and four bathrooms — portal potties, if you will. The house sleeps up to 14 guests.
“I’m gonna be bummed out when we have to get out of here,” said Behiel, who joined Tulsa in December 2024 after serving as the assistant athletic director for football at Fresno State.
Lamb has also spent a handful of nights at the house, saving himself 40 minutes roundtrip driving from the football office to his actual house in south Tulsa.
The Portal House isn’t just a place to entertain prospective players. It’s where Tulsa’s staff can collaborate under one roof on a near 24/7 basis during the craziest two weeks on the calendar.
The perks of the portal house are abundant. Chef-prepared dinners (shrimp and grits is Lamb’s favorite). A backyard that includes a heated pool, giant chess set and putting greens (Lamb is practically a scratch golfer).
Rather than taking portalers to Polo Grill, a swanky local steakhouse, or Ruth’s Chris, Lamb and his staff have opted for the laid-back vibes of a cookout. Not only is the setting more personable, but the tab is cheaper. On a per-visit basis, Lamb said Tulsa is under budget on recruiting expenses by going this route.
“Recruits will come into town just because they want to see this,” Lamb said. “Guys we may not have had a shot at. And then they fall in love with the staff. We might get that kid, and if we do, it’s worth it. It’s worth every dollar.”
Upon arrival, players first visit campus to tour the facilities and do weigh-ins and physicals, but evenings are spent chilling at the Portal House.
It’s like an in-home visit. Only in reverse.
“They’re coming into our home,” Lamb said. “With the times in college football, anything you can do to adapt and be different, you’re gonna have a great chance. Our goal in this thing is to sign the best players possible and think outside the box and be disruptive and innovative. I’m sure it’s pissing off everybody in the conference that we thought of it and they didn’t.”
The staff can host up to five players and their families at a time. The recruits can either stay at a hotel or in the portal house. Lamb guessed that about 30% have chosen the latter.
“I’m sure Southern Cal is gonna have a house in Malibu next year,” he said, “that’s $30 million overlooking the ocean.”
For as quaint as the Midtown house looks from the curb, step inside and you’ll see it’s tricked out with a game room, sun room that doubles as a yoga studio and a karaoke stage in one of living rooms, where an EA Sports College Football 26 video game is paused on a mounted TV.
Wednesday was a dead period — so no prospects were in the house — but Tulsa staffers had their eyes glued to multiple screens in the back living room. A bio of a player from a Sun Belt school was pulled up on one TV. Another coach was watching film of a Big 12 player who’s in the portal. And one screen showed the actual portal — a database of names, some of which popped up in real time.
And not just names. Game film, contact info, Pro Football Focus grades and biographical minutiae attached to each of those names.
It’s nonstop work to sort through the thousands of players.
“You’re not gonna see your family for 14 days,” Lamb told his staff. “It’s just the fact of the matter … You can sneak out in the afternoon for a couple hours, I’ve gone to pick my kids up from school a couple times just to let them know dad’s still alive, but we knew these 14 days were gonna be tough because you don’t have (a second portal window) to fix it.”
That’s a new change to the calendar.
“If you don’t get these 14 days right, you’re not gonna be worth crap in the fall,” Lamb said. “We’re gonna win our games in this 14-day window and I think our staff understands that.”
Tulsa, as of Tuesday, had signed 20 players out of the portal and had room for about five more.
Tulsa, to give you a real-life example, needs a defensive tackle. So while Lamb chatted with reporters, a Tulsa staffer in the next room sifted through every defensive tackle who had entered the portal in the last two hours.
If that staffer finds a player whose film is worth watching, he’ll alert the defensive line coach. If the defensive line coach likes what he sees, he’ll show the defensive coordinator. And if the defensive coordinator signs off, Behiel calls the player’s agent to gauge interest and price range. If after all of that the player is still worth pursuing, that’s when Lamb gets looped in.
“It’s a group effort,” Behiel said. “We have a pretty good structure and workflow to end up getting to a decision of, this is a player we want, this is where we see him, I kind of figure out with the agent how much we value the player, what we can pay him and if it all works out and we’re full speed, get a guy on campus and go from there.”
Having a GM like Behiel is a must for coaches nowadays.
“I can’t imagine doing it without one,” Lamb said. “These coaches who don’t have a GM, how do you deal with agents if you’re the head coach? I don’t even talk to ‘em. ‘Hey, you talk to the agents, you get the contracts ready, you let me know if he likes it.’”
Lamb, 36, was hired by Tulsa after he spent five years as a head coach at the FCS level — four seasons at Gardner-Webb and one at East Tennessee State.
Tulsa went 4-8 (1-7 American) in Lamb’s first season. Among the four wins was a September victory at Oklahoma State, the game that led to Mike Gundy’s firing.
The American Conference was stacked in 2025 with Tulane beating North Texas in the conference title game, but the league was gutted this offseason. Four former American head coaches got Power Four gigs. Eric Morris went from North Texas to OSU. Tulane’s Jon Sumrall went to Florida. Ryan Silverfield went from Memphis to Arkansas. Alex Golesh from South Florida to Auburn.
Despite being a poster program of the portal with the house and all, Tulsa retained a bulk of its roster, including starting quarterback Baylor Hayes.
Given the turnover elsewhere in the conference, there’s a crack for Tulsa to emerge.
“No question,” Lamb said. “The biggest word I’ve used all offseason is continuity. How many coaches can we bring back? How many players can we bring back? If we have continuity in our playbook and our verbiage and our players, we’ve already got a year ahead of four programs.”
Tulsa’s highest-rated portal prize, according to on3.com, is former Tulsa Union standout running back D.J. McKinney (not the D.J. McKinney who played at OSU). McKinney rushed for 464 yards and seven touchdowns last season at New Mexico and was dangerous in the return game.
Former OSU edge rusher Kyran Duhon is also committed to Tulsa. The Golden Hurricane will host the Cowboys in the 2026 season opener. Tulsa is bringing in defensive linemen from Nebraska and Virginia Tech. A running back from Auburn and a wide receiver from West Virginia among others.
At a school like Tulsa, the prime targets are guys who have fallen out of favor at larger schools or players who are looking to rise the ranks from smaller programs. Lamb didn’t disclose how much money Tulsa has budgeted to spend on its roster, but he was confident in saying that it’s a number that puts Tulsa in the top half, maybe the top third, of the 14-team American Conference.
Lamb said he and his staff have signed about 70% of the players who have come on a visit to the Portal House. They expected closer to a 50% hit rate.
“We’ve had a lot of success making guys say yes while they’re here and making them feel like they’re in a family environment,” Lamb said.
And if they get a “no,” it’s onto the next name.
The whole idea behind the Portal House was born back in October. Behiel credited run game coordinator/offensive line coach Joe Scelfo and defensive analyst Tyler Dell as the originators of it.
Decisions in the Portal House have to be made fast. Gone are the days when coaches can get to know everything about a player and his family over the course of months. This is speed dating.
“There’s gonna be some misses for sure,” Lamb said. “We want to do everything in our power to eliminate those misses. Part of our reasoning for doing this style of visit is you’re hopefully getting all the coaches around the family and the kids to maybe find out more about (the player).
“How’s his competitiveness? Is he football smart? I can play a video game with him and if he starts talking about Cover 2 … he knows what he’s doing. You’re trying to do as much research as you can in a short period of time. There’s gonna be misses, but the teams that have the fewest misses and best players are gonna have a chance to be the best teams.”
This whole Portal House idea would’ve seemed preposterous just a few years ago. It’s crazy even now to know that such a place exists. A world where college players have contracts complete with buyout clauses and penalties if they miss classes or meetings. Where coaches employ general managers to haggle with agents.
Lamb thinks this is a bubble. One that will inevitably be popped. Eventually there will be regulations. A leadership structure that, unlike the NCAA, will restore even the slightest bit of order. That’s the hope, at least. Until then, this is the system that exists, and the coaches and programs that adapt will be the coaches and programs that win.
You might think this is the underbelly of college football. That the sport, despite its booming popularity, is as unseemly as ever. But none of this is happening in the shadows.
No, it’s unfolding in broad daylight. Off Utica Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Inside a house with an “open” sign on the door.
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: How Tulsa football is changing game with transfer portal house
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