The NCAA Division I Council on Tuesday shortened the transfer portal window for football and men’s and women’s basketball from 45 to 30 days, but did not take the step of removing the spring football portal window.
As a result, the football portal will be open this year from Dec. 9 to 28 and April 16 to 25. For basketball, the portal will open the day after the second round of the NCAA Tournaments.
In June, the Council proposed shrinking the window from 45 days to 30 days after decreasing it from 60 days to 45 a year ago. Two months later, the Football Oversight Committee recommended keeping one 30-day window in the winter and removing the spring window altogether. But there was concern from player advocates about the change, especially around the ongoing House v. NCAA settlement and subsequent changes that would decrease football roster sizes to 105 players with more scholarships. For those players essentially cut from teams in spring as a result, there wouldn’t be a spring portal window to jump in.
Transfer portal windows only apply to players choosing to leave. Players do not need to select a new school in that window.
“In creating transfer windows a few years ago, NCAA schools identified that those windows might need to be adjusted over time as the transfer landscape evolved and we gained more information about student-athlete mobility,” Illinois athletic director and D-I Council chair Josh Whitman said in a June statement.
“(T)he data support(s) that this adjustment would not meaningfully impact the great majority of transfer student-athletes in these sports.”
There was also concern over what removing a spring window would do for teams that make late coaching changes. This year, Alabama, Washington, Arizona and San Jose State all saw a January trickle-down coaching change after Nick Saban’s retirement, which came after the winter portal window.
While a coaching change creates a 30-day window for players to enter the portal, the lack of a spring portal would further limit the pool of options for those teams to replenish their rosters.
(Photo: Isaiah Vazquez / NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
