A defensive back on Tuesday said he is leaving the Rutgers University football team because of the Big Ten school’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. “The University of Rutgers [sic] has made the COVID vaccine mandatory to attend school and play football, therefore I have no other choice but to enter my name into the transfer portal,” Peyton Powell wrote on Twitter. According to the NCAA transfer portal rules, a player can withdraw his name at any time, and schools are free to contact a player once their name appears in the portal. A Texas native, Powell transferred to Rutgers from his home state’s Baylor University in December 2019. He never played in a game during his sophomore year with the Scarlet Knights, reported student newspaper The Daily Targum. Rutgers runs five campuses across New Jersey, including its main campus in New Brunswick, which is preparing to fully reopen to over 50,000 …