College football coaches want transfer portal changes. Here’s what they’ve proposed
Coaches from the Football Bowl Subdivision met Tuesday at the American Football Coaches Association in Charlotte. Their major concern entering the meeting: The transfer portal.
AFCA Executive Director Craig Bohl told reporters after the meeting there was a unanimous decision to recommend a single transfer portal window next year.
“The FBS head coaches voted in support of a one transfer window,” Bohl said, reading a statement. He did not take questions. “They supported a modification of the transfer window that would begin with the 2025-26 academic year, replacing football’s current December and April notification-of-transfer windows.”
The window, when student-athletes can officially enter their names into the portal, would be from Jan. 2-12, 2026. Bohl said the coaches in attendance — which included Manny Diaz (Duke), Brian Kelly (LSU), Kirby Smart (Georgia), Dabo Swinney (Clemson), Brent Venables (Oklahoma) and dozens of others from major conferences and Group of Five programs — voted unanimously to recommend this single window to the NCAA Football Oversight Committee.
This is simply a recommendation from the coaches who participated. The NCAA oversight committee can approve the recommendation, make changes or retain the current model.
For the 2024-25 academic year, there are two transfer portal windows. Student-athletes were allowed to enter their names into the portal from Dec. 9-28, 2024. Those who did not enter in the winter window can do so on April 16-25, according to the NCAA.
“We felt like it was important as coaches to express some of the challenges the student-athletes have encountered,” Bohl said. “When we rolled out the windows, there were good intentions, but there were some unintended consequences.”
Additionally, the recruiting calendar included a “quiet” recruiting period from Dec. 9-22. This meant in-person recruiting was allowed if activities took place on campus. For example, N.C. State, North Carolina and Duke were allowed to host recruits for official and unofficial visits. Coaches may also call, text or make other electronic communication with recruits.
The coaches on Tuesday recommended the quiet period become a “dead” period. During this time, coaches cannot make in-person contact on or off campus with a prospective student-athlete.
“These recommendations are intended,” Bohl said, “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 do so for a traditional spring semester.”
Bohl said the group looked at information from various sources when deciding on this recommendation.
“Our coaches care deeply about the student-athletes, so this decision that was made was through the filter of allowing them more stability and to be able to move forward,” Bohl said.
N.C. State, Duke and UNC all have players in the portal. At the time of publication, the Wolfpack leads all programs with 18 outgoing transfers. Carolina has 12 outgoing transfers. This number does not include players who withdrew their name from the portal. Duke lost five players to the portal, including quarterback Maalik Murphy.
N.C. State head coach Dave Doeren has spoken extensively about the transfer portal and the current calendar, lamenting the timing.
“Hopefully, we can get some really good people together after the season and come up with a better way to serve everybody involved in this thing,” Doeren said. “It needs to happen for college football. It needs to happen for these bowl games, for these teams, for these coaches, for the players.”
Doeren said the current setup does not allow players to finish their seasons. It forces coaches to balance recruiting and potential bowl game preparation, while the players — whether or not they transfer — are trying to finish final exams.
“You see it in the NFL. Their teams are together until their seasons are over, their coaches are together until their seasons are over,” Doeren said. “I know it’s a different calendar because they don’t have academics involved, but there are ways to be smart about serving the season, and that’s really important for these athletes to be in a model that does that.”
Duke, while it has fewer transfers due to the rigorous academic standards, has still felt the impact of the portal.
“We’ve had to adapt like everybody else,” Blue Devils coach Manny Diaz said Tuesday. “I think we’ve done a good job with doing that. I think that’s why, as an organization, we’re trying to find out what’s best for the sport, and we’ve had good conversations to that point.”
The NCAA Football Oversight Committee has two upcoming meetings set on Jan. 30 via teleconference and again on Feb. 10-11 in Indianapolis. It’s unclear exactly when the committee will discuss this proposal.
