Colorado OL and 2025 recruit Jay Gardenhire enters transfer portal

6-foot-8, 350-pound three-star offensive tackle Jay Gardenhire has entered the transfer portal, this coming off the heels of Colorado's Black and Gold spring game on Saturday. This news was first broken by On3 Sports CFB recruiting analyst Hayes Fawcett.

Gardenhire landed in Boulder, Colorado in the 2025 recruiting class and is a true freshman out of West Bloomfield HS in Michigan.

No. 122nd overall prospect for his position nationally and 35th best prospect in the state of Michigan. 

According to 247Sports Gardenhire is a late bloomer prospect only playing the sports for a couple years.

Gardenhire is originally from New Jersey, where he grew up playing "just about every sport other than football." Gardenhire enrolled at DePaul Catholic in the Garden State to play basketball, but after receiving an invitation from the Spartans football staff, he embraced the challenge of being on the gridiron.

"We went to take a tour of the school and all the football coaches were in the conference room having a meeting. The basketball coach brought me in and they all kind of stopped their meeting and had big eyes and let me know they'd be honored if I would play for them," Gardenhire recalled. "I saw that I had a bright future playing football so I started learning the game. I got hurt right before my junior year, but up until then, even though I had only been playing a year, I learned so much."

He had offers from Alabama A&M, FAU, Marshall, Boston College and Pittsburgh before coming to Colorado.

Colorado recently lost offensive lineman Cash Cleveland on Thursday but also landed Memphis offensive lineman Xavier Hill earlier this week.

Gardenhire will keep all four years of eligibility at his next stop. Here are his highlights below.