Four-star freshman LB Nigel Glover enters transfer portal, first Northwestern player since Pat Fitzgerald’s firing to do so

On Monday afternoon, On3’s Matt Zenitz shared that four-star linebacker Nigel Glover, an incoming freshman hailing from Clayton, Ohio, will enter the transfer portal. Glover is the first Wildcat on the 2023 roster to leave Northwestern since former head coach Pat Fitzgerald was fired last Monday in response to allegations of sexual hazing and racism in NU’s program.

As Zenitz stated, Glover is the highest-ranked player in Northwestern’s incoming recruiting class. He flashed defensive versatility in high school as a star for Northmont, primarily playing as a hybrid safety. He was expected to transition to outside linebacker for Northwestern, giving an upperclassman-heavy group some valuable depth in the near future.

But now, NU is set to lose the defensive centerpiece of its 2023 class. Per 247 Sports, Glover is one of three four-star recruits in a class of 19, and he is the only member of that trio to play defense. The only other linebacker who has joined the team as an incoming freshman is Justin Cryer, a three-star recruit out of Brookshire, Texas.

According to 247, Glover was the seventh-best recruit in the state of Ohio, and the 25th-best linebacker in the nation. He committed to Northwestern on April 10, 2022, but will now go portaling with less than eight weeks before the NCAA season begins.