CHARLOTTE — College football head coaches on Tuesday voted to recommend a proposal to shrink the sport’s transfer portal windows to a single 10-day window in January.
The recommendation, which is not an official NCAA proposal but will be taken to NCAA committees, came following a meeting of more than 60 Football Bowl Subdivision head coaches at the American Football Coaches Association convention, a much higher turnout than most years. Among the marquee names in attendance were Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer and Auburn’s Hugh Freeze. Coaches from at least the SEC, Big 12 and American Athletic Conference told The Athletic their leagues highly encouraged coaches to attend this year to discuss this specific topic at the meeting.
The recommendation would shrink the portal windows from a 20-day window in December and a 10-day window in April to just Jan. 2-12, beginning in 2026, if approved in time through the NCAA process. The recommendation also would change a December recruiting quiet period into a dead period.
The AFCA does not create rules for college football, but it can put forth recommendations to the football oversight committees. Former Wyoming and North Dakota State head coach Craig Bohl became the new executive director of the organization a year ago. Also in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting were Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks and Buffalo athletic director Mark Alnutt, who are on the Division I Council and FBS football oversight committee.
“We felt it was important as coaches to express some of the challenges that the student-athletes encountered when we rolled out the windows,” Bohl said. “There were good intentions, but there were some unintended consequences.”
The portal windows only signify when undergraduate players can enter the portal. They don’t need to pick a new school in that time frame, though academic enrollment calendars create some de facto deadlines. Graduate students have been allowed to enter at any time, while players whose head coach is fired are given an immediate 30-day window to enter following the coaching change. Bohl only spoke to reporters for three minutes before hurrying off to another meeting and did not address whether any of that would change, though it’s not expected to.
The size of the transfer portal’s window for entry has shrunk continuously since it was first announced in 2022. It began as 60 days (45 after the regular season, 15 in spring). A year later, the total dropped to 45 total days. In October, the NCAA Division I Council again shrunk it to 30 total days.
The football oversight committees had recommended to the Council last August to keep one 30-day window in the winter and remove the spring window. There was an expectation among some industry sources that would happen, but it did not, due to concerns over backlash from athletes and roster cutdowns expected later this year after the House v. NCAA settlement caps football roster sizes at 105 players. Without a spring portal window, many of those players dropped from rosters could be stuck.
Heading into Tuesday’s AFCA meeting, coaches’ feelings on a potential portal solution were mixed. Some told The Athletic they preferred a spring-only window, to slow down the frantic month of December, especially for College Football Playoff teams that risk losing players to the portal before games, like Penn State backup quarterback Beau Pribula. It would also fit players academically to transfer after the year instead of between semesters.
But other head coaches said they’d prefer a winter-only window because if a disgruntled player wants to transfer out, the coach doesn’t want to have to keep him around through winter training and spring practice.
Coaches and schools’ name, image and likeness collectives have been frustrated by the spring portal window, as it gives players opportunities to renegotiate their NIL compensation just months after agreeing to deals in the first portal window, having secured new leverage by earning a starting position during spring practice or being contacted by other needy programs about entering the portal.
Tuesday’s discussion between coaches resulted in a middle ground on the calendar and didn’t make any changes to spring practice. Now the topic will move to NCAA committees to discuss and make the decisions.
“These recommendations are intended to allow a student-athlete and coaches more opportunity to focus on their season while preserving the opportunities for students who choose to transfer to still be able to for a traditional spring semester,” Bohl said. “Our coaches care deeply about the student-athletes, and this decision was made through the filter of allowing them more stability and to be able to move forward.”
Bohl said the coaches voted electronically before coming up with the final resolution, which received a unanimous voice vote.
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