NCAA: Transfer portal rules changing?

One of the biggest topics of conversation during any collegiate sport’s offseason is the transfer portal. Ever since the NCAA passed legislation allowing for a one-time free transfer, college sports have developed a pseudo-free agency that has drastically changed the way coaches recruit and the way players handle opportunities.

Prominent players across all sports at the University of South Carolina have come to the Gamecocks through the transfer portal: football’s Spencer Rattler, baseball’s Noah Hall, and basketball’s Meechie Johnson and Kamilla Cardoso are some of the most well-known of the transfers.

While large-scale changes to the portal have not been part of any new legislation, the portal has been undergoing minor tweaks each year since its inception. The most prevalent of the transfer portal updates have focused on the college football calendar, and that trend has continued this summer.

Earlier this week, the NCAA proposed further schedule changes for the transfer portal, and if ratified, these rule changes would affect all NCAA-sanctioned sports. The proposal, presented by the NCAA Division-1 Council, suggests that the transfer portal window should shrink from 60 days (or 45 days for spring sports) to 30.

For those who are not familiar with the transfer portal window, it is, most simply, the period in which undergraduate Division-1 student-athletes are allowed to enter their names into the transfer portal while keeping their eligibility for the one-time free transfer. Players can finalize their transfers at any time after entering the portal.

Currently across all Division-1 sports, undergraduate athletes have a 60-day window (or 45-day window for spring sports) to enter the portal without an NCAA waiver and without enduring a 1-year penalty that would result in the athlete sitting out of NCAA competition for a season. Graduate students can enter the portal at any time and are free to transfer without penalty.

The open window has been lamented by coaches across college athletics as those who lead Division-1 programs already have an incredibly busy calendar of games, practices, and recruiting. South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer has called for “some calendar changes,” and Alabama headman Nick Saban has said the current college football calendar is “bad for college football.”

A 30-day window would go a long way in addressing this issue, especially as it pertains to the sport of college football. For football, the current 60-day window is split into two. A 45-day period exists after the announcement of the College Football Playoff, and a 15-day window begins roughly after spring practice.

Shrinking the window will allow for programs to resume normal offseason activities (workouts, player-led practices, film study, roster decisions, etc.) at a more appropriate time instead of trying to figure out where portal recruiting fits in and how to integrate late-arriving transfers.

ESPN’s Tom Vanhaaren reports that almost 3600 Division-1 FBS and Division-1 FCS football players entered the transfer portal this offseason.