By Jackson Posey | Sports Editor
The NCAA is one step closer to reforming the college football transfer portal.
The Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) Oversight Committee, one of several NCAA governance boards, officially recommended major changes to the sport’s transfer portal Thursday.
Most notably, the committee recommended creating a single notification-of-transfer window, which regulates when athletes can enter the portal. The current system allows two windows of entry for Division I football players: a 20-day period in December and a 10-day period in April. Last year’s winter window stretched from Dec. 9-28; the spring window, from April 16-25.
In addition to the streamlined entry period, which would tentatively run from Jan. 2-11, the entire month of December would become a “dead period.” Coaches would still be allowed to communicate with prospects, but “no on- or off-campus recruiting contacts or evaluations may occur.”
The recommendation also suggests a change to offering recruits “written offers of financial aid or settlement-related benefits” — in other words, scholarship and direct payments, now allowed under the House settlement. Current rules delay written offers until Aug. 1 before the athletes’ senior year of high school; the committee is recommending that date be pushed back to Nov. 15 of the athlete’s senior year.
Since officially passing legislation in April 2024, which allowed most athletes to transfer unlimited times without losing eligibility, the NCAA has been hit with increasingly high levels of roster turnover. On the first day of the first notification-of-transfer window in Dec. 2024, more than 1,000 FBS players entered the portal.
The problem exists across sports; Baylor men’s basketball, for instance, lost its entire roster this offseason. But the problem can be particularly acute in football.
Marshall lost so many players to the first transfer portal window it had to back out of its bowl game. Purdue lost 56 players to the portal. Washington State lost 59.
The recommendations presented Thursday aim to stem the flow of unabated player movement, which has caused academic as well as athletic issues. Both have drawn criticism from coaches around the country, who now face increased roster turnover and declining graduation rates as more players bounce from school to school.
“[Getting a] degree is just so important,” head football coach Dave Aranda said Monday. “What’s hard about it is, I think sometimes the money puts distance between how important that is, because you feel like there’s a buffer there. But it’s just not real. It goes away so fast.”
Holding a single transfer window in January would’ve affected players like Richard Reese, the former Baylor running back who entered the portal on April 16 and transferred to Stephen F. Austin. Under the committee’s proposed rule changes, players would not be able to enter the transfer portal during the spring and be immediately eligible in the fall.
