Sam Pittman on the benefit of one transfer portal window: 'You gonna give your wife two or three opportunities a year to leave you?'

For years, there has been a tug-of-war match over the Transfer Portal. That’s both how it operates and how long it operates. Now, it appears a significant step has been taken to limiting the portal to one window in the winter.

There are plenty of coaches who are in favor of limiting the Transfer Portal to one window. That includes Arkansas Razorbacks head coach Sam Pittman. He recently shared a colorful metaphor for the situation, meant to emphasize why he prefers one portal window.

“It’s been a long time since I played,” Sam Pittman said. “As a coach, there are no disadvantages to me. None. Are you going to give your wife two or three opportunities a year to leave you? I mean, come on. Mine would’ve been gone a long time ago. With no ramifications? Bye.”

Looking to address the issue, the NCAA Football Oversight Committee voted to support a single portal window. That would be just a 10-day window and would open on January 2nd, meaning that other than a few teams left in the College Football Playoff, their seasons will be over. The vote requires approval from the Administrative Committee by October 1st to take effect this year.

There are a few challenges that the Transfer Portal has created. The month of December has become chaotic for coaches, finishing their high school recruiting classes, prepping for a bowl, and dealing with the portal. Then, the spring window can see rosters shake up with little time to adjust to new players once they come in. So, it isn’t easy on coaches.

“Look, we’ve got a bowl problem, right? So if they put it back to January,” Pittman said. “Hopefully, we don’t have 50 guys playing on your team when you play the bowl. We’re already down to starting with 105. So, I think that will help that as well. I just, for the life of me, cannot ever understand how we can have spring ball, and after spring ball, the portal opens. That just makes no sense to me. Why would you have spring ball if you’re going to lose 10 guys off of your team? It just makes no sense.”

One challenge that coaches like Sam Pittman have pointed to in the past is the academic side of college sports. Transferring makes it harder to graduate. On top of that, different schools have different academic calendars. So, semesters don’t always start at the same time.

“So, if they would go to one, I think it’s good for the kids. They have an opportunity to transfer if they want to. They have an opportunity to get in school. Nobody’s talking about you got a guy in his third year of playing,” Pittman said. “And he transfers and he loses 18, 20 [credit] hours. I mean, when are we going to figure out about graduation? Well, four or five years down the road, I guarantee the graduation rate will go down at every college. It will because you can’t transfer and lose 18 hours and graduate on the same pace as if you kept them. So, there’s a lot of things to be thinking of there.”

There are, naturally, repercussions to moving down to one Transfer Portal window. According to On3’s Pete Nakos, this will make player retention easier. However, that’s going to come with less leverage for players who need to make quicker decisions.

“I hope that it goes to January. It’ll keep the bowls. Then, it’ll give you some time to talk to the kids and visit with them.” Pittman said. “Before somebody grabs a hold of them. Hopefully, we’ll be on top of that as well.”