Maliq Carr and Sam Leavitt are leaving.

After a weekend visit, Aidan Chiles and Jack Velling might be on their way back to East Lansing.

Michigan State football fans are optimistic. Oregon State fans are shattered. And it’s no one’s fault.

Not Carr for saying Monday afternoon he would finish his remaining eligibility elsewhere, or Leavitt for picking Arizona State.

Or new Spartans coach Jonathan Smith for looking to reunite with young players he recruited to follow him from the West Coast.

But the tales of two quarterbacks and two tight ends likely heading in opposite directions tell the story of college football in 2023.

Which looks nothing like when Smith took over at his alma mater 6 years ago. Or the last time MSU underwent a coaching change from Mark Dantonio to Mel Tucker in 2020. Or any other time in the sport’s history.

“In this day and age in college football, there’s opportunities there, in regards to weighing your options, fresh starts somewhere else,” Smith said during his introductory news conference Nov. 28. “All of the current players are unsettled the last year, so that’s not totally surprising for guys to maybe want to explore an option or two, and I get that. And we really support those that want to be in that locker room in January.

“I’ve got a firm belief we can hit the ground running and do something special.”

If newspapers today were what they once were, the agate page of the sports section would need to expand greatly. Much like the transactions wire detailed the comings and goings of pro sports for decades, that essentially is what is happening in the era of one-time free transfers and immediate eligibility. And that’s not even to mention name, image and likeness deals that radically have altered the mechanisms of player movement in major college athletics.

It's a business, more so than ever. For everyone. From the coaches making millions to the athletes fast-approaching that territory, if you believe some industry insiders (though even college administrators really don’t know for sure who is getting how much money and to do what exactly, or if it isn’t strictly a pay-for-play situation).

Mark the debut of the NCAA’s transfer portal on Oct. 15, 2018, during Smith’s first year at Oregon State, as the moment the changes began in college sports. One-time transfers without eligibility penalties came April 28, 2021, followed by the NCAA's NIL policy two months after that. It has become the wild west since, with athletes racing to the portal like homesteaders chasing the gold rush in the 1800s.

Since the portal officially opened Dec. 4 after the regular-season ended, thousands of football players from every level entered. At a blistering minute-by-minute pace the first day, but with many more filing the necessary paperwork daily. They have until Jan. 2 to finalize their transfers — at least for spring semester.

TRACKING: Michigan State transfer portal tracker: Which players are leaving, staying

That’s what Leavitt and MSU’s other two scholarship quarterbacks, Katin Houser and Noah Kim, did almost immediately after Smith’s hiring was announced Nov. 25, hours after the Spartans’ 4-8 season ended with a blowout loss to Penn State. Kim, a Dantonio recruit, announced Tuesday he will transfer to Coastal Carolina.

Leavitt, from Oregon, did not get recruited by Smith's Beavers. Instead, Smith brought in Chiles from the Los Angeles area. Leavitt joined Tucker at MSU this summer. And then Tucker was gone, fired Sept. 27.

Enter Smith, potentially with Chiles as a roadblock to Leavitt’s future again.

Exit Leavitt to the desert.

Chiles and Velling were among players who the Spartans hosted over the weekend for official visits, along with committed high school recruits such as River Rouge wide receiver Nick Marsh, Pennsylvania cornerback Justin Denson and Ohio offensive linemen twins Mercer and Charlton Luniewski, all of whom have remained pledged to the program with the staff changeover. The early signing period for college football is Dec. 20-22, with the traditional period reopening Feb. 7 and running through April 1, 2024.

While they were on campus Saturday, Carr tweeted his decision to enter the portal, and Monday announced his time at MSU — which included a semester playing basketball for Tom Izzo — was over.

“After an interesting 3 years at Michigan State,” Carr wrote, “I have decided to finish my collegiate career elsewhere.”

Carr’s decision, in some ways, brings things full circle for the program in transition.

Carr, an Inkster native and Oak Park High graduate, played his freshman year at Purdue, then transferred to MSU with four years of eligibility remaining thanks to the NCAA’s waiver for 2020. He was one of 21 players Tucker brought in for his second season in 2021, with 27 leaving the program from Tucker’s pandemic-disrupted debut the previous year.

It was the first transfer portal tidal wave brought on by a new coach using it to overhaul a roster, and it produced an 11-win season and New Year’s Six bowl win for the Spartans. It was a model Deion Sanders borrowed and extrapolated after taking over Colorado last winter, with 51 inbound transfers and 57 players from the 2022 team leaving the program, including sixth-year defensive tackle Jalen Sami, who transferred to MSU.

Yet it wasn’t a sustainable setup for Tucker, as evidenced by the 5-7 follow-up in 2022, this season’s continued downturn and the revolving door of transfers who did not have the same impact as Kenneth Walker III. And it wasn’t for Sanders, who won his first three games before finishing with an identical 4-8 record as MSU this fall.

Oregon State, with Chiles and Velling — both high school recruits of Smith's — beat Sanders' Buffaloes, 26-19, at Colorado on Nov. 4.

Carr is one of six MSU players who entered the portal after Smith’s hiring who have already transferred previously. Four of the 25 Spartans who have entered the portal since Tucker’s firing — linebacker Darius Snow and offensive linemen Brandon Baldwin, Ethan Boyd and on Tuesday Kristian "Big Dooley" Phillips — have withdrawn their names to stay.

Smith landed his first two commitments Tuesday, from three-star running back Makhi Frazier and three-star tight end Wyatt Hook. MSU also has seven 2024 pledges remaining ahead of the early signing period after seven decommitted during the season. Smith and his staff are juggling both high school recruiting and mining the portal to reassemble the roster before spring semester classes begin in January.

“There's a lot going on obviously with the early signing day, but I'll just echo there's a second signing date as well,” Smith said. “I feel like you can build your roster 365 days a year now in this new landscape of college football. ... We'll use the different avenues to build the roster. I'm talking about on long-term sustainability. Yes, we want to be heavy on the high school side.

“But you build your roster through the transfer portal, walk-on players. I lived the (walk-on) experience. So there's all ways that you can build a roster, and we'll use all of them.”

By January, all Smith will know is who he has for spring workouts and practices. The portal reopens April 16-30. There will be more movement then, and again late in the summer into preseason camp. All before Smith even coaches a game.

This is the new norm.

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him @chrissolari.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan State transfer portal comes full circle for Jonathan Smith