By Mark Pszonak
Not too many people are happy with the current rules of the transfer portal. Either it is too long or too short, it should be moved to a different time of the year or it should be open continuously as it used to be. Not surprisingly, as the AFCA (American Football Coaches Association) Convention is concluding, news has broken that there is a new proposal regarding a change:
AFCA head coaches are proposing to move the transfer portal to a 10-day window in early January after bowl games with spring window eliminated (except for graduate transfers).
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) January 14, 2025
If the only reason behind shortening the window to 10 days is to lessen the chaos of the current 30-day window, then this plan is already a lost cause. There is no reason to believe that less players will decide to transfer because they have less time to do so. So instead of thousands of players entering during a 30-day window, the same amount will enter in 10 days. Then you’ll see real chaos.
Also, the timing of moving the window to early January has another obvious flaw. Many schools, especially in the southern portion of the country, start their spring semester during the first week of the month. Players would be entering the portal and rushing to find a new school in order to start classes at their new destination. I know academics aren’t necessarily a priority with the transfer portal, but enrolling in classes is still a reality.
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Moving the window to early January would make more sense in regards to bowl games, many of which have been ravaged because schools have been playing with a limited roster due to the amount of players who transferred out. Marshall is an obvious example of this, as they had to opt out of their bowl entirely due to a lack of players. It would also make life easier for players like Beau Pribula, who decided to enter the transfer portal during Penn State’s run through the playoffs just to give himself more options.
A better answer would be to move the portal week (or two, three, etc) to the spring. Yes, the negative there is that players would not be able to participate in spring practice at their new school, but every school would have to deal with this reality. It is a negative that could be dealt with.
The chaos of the transfer portal is here to stay. No matter if the window is 365 days, three weeks, one week or one hour, thousands of players will still enter. This is a blackhole that can not be closed now. However, making it a little bearable is still a possibility. Yet once again though, this new proposal would be another swing-and-miss.
