Miami kicker Bubba Baxa has entered the NCAA's transfer portal a source told 247Sports on Friday.

Baxa was Hurricanes' starting placekicker at the beginning of this past season, but was quickly benched in favor of walk-ons Camden Price and Turner Davidson after key misses in losses to both Florida and North Carolina.

Miami added a veteran kicker to its roster earlier this week when the school announced that FIU's Jose Borregales was transferring in as a graduate student. Borregales was a Lou Groza Award semifinalist in 2018 and actually hit a pair of long field goals against in the Panthers' shocking upset of the Hurricanes at Marlin Park.

Baxa went 14 of 22 on field goal attempts in a green and orange uniform over the past two seasons.

UM special teams coordinator Jonathan Patke said during the Early Signing Period that the staff planned to address the kicking issues in the near future.

“We need to make the roster as best as it can be to win football games like [Manny Diaz] said, so if there’s [a graduate transfer] available, we’re not opposed to looking at them if we have a spot and obviously you’ve got to scholarship those guys,” Patke said. “We’ve got 18 signed and we’ve got some work to do to scholarship some other positions, but we want to make our roster the best that we can and scoring points is important.”

Baxa was a two-star recruit in the Class of 2018 coming out of Pasadena Memorial in Texas. He was ranked by 247Sports as the nation's No. 6 kicker and also held offers from Baylor and Army.

Miami has now had five players enter the transfer portal over the past month in addition to Baxa. The others are: running back Lorenzo Lingard, fullback Realus George, defensive lineman Tyreic Martin and tight end Brian Polendey. Lingard transferred to Florida. George is at Independence Community College. Martin and Polendey haven't surfaced anywhere.

The NCAA introduced the portal on Oct. 15, 2018, providing athletes a path to explore their options. Players do not need to ask permission from their coaching staff in order to transfer. They merely need to request that compliance enter their name. Usually, it takes 24-48 hours for a player to appear following their request.

Schools are free to contact a player without restriction once their name appears in the portal.

While a player entering their name in the transfer portal means they intend to explore their options, it does not necessarily mean they will leave. A player is free to withdraw his name at any time. However, schools are under no obligation to keep a player on scholarship once they enter the portal.

The first portal cycle saw 1,942 FBS players enter in the initial calendar year of its existence, per a source.