Matt Rhule reacts to proposed single January transfer portal window: 'Thank goodness'

Amid discussion continues about the transfer portal, the NCAA’s football oversight committee made its recommendation last week. It recommended a single portal window in January – a 10-day window starting Jan. 2.

Reaction poured in from across college football after the recommendation. That includes Nebraska coach Matt Rhule, who celebrated the idea of only one window.

Rhule made it clear he supports players’ ability to transfer if they choose to do so, but disagreed with the idea of having two chances to do so. He argued would will help with roster construction if coaches know who’ll be transferring in during one singular period of time.

“Thank goodness,” Rhule said during a Thursday press conference. “I mean, I want kids to have a chance to transfer if they’re unhappy, if they’re not in the right setup. So I want them to have that. But two portal windows, I mean, it’s just torture. To me, the season’s over, you set your year for the next year and then you build your team, right? And for the players, they set where they’re going and they build their team. The thing about transferring, if a kid wants to transfer, they’re probably going to go in the portal the first couple days. They’re going to go on day one, day two.

“What happens is that, teams lose a guy or they thought they were getting so-and-so and he goes somewhere else, and then they go and they try to convince people to go in the portal to fix their needs. That’s not the best interest of the player. If a kid’s happy, he should just stay there. If he’s unhappy, he should go in the portal. So I don’t know why we need 27 days. I don’t know why we need two portal windows. I wish it matched the financial year. We’re paying players from July 1 to June [30], but yet the portal’s in the middle of the year.”

As the revenue-sharing era begins in college athletics, Rhule said a singular portal window would work out better from a contractual standpoint to avoid players transferring multiple times. Additionally, he pointed out basketball only has one transfer window, and he wondered why football couldn’t do the same.

“The one portal window, it’s better because you’re basically going to December and then you sign a contract with somebody, and they come back to you and, ‘Hey, I might leave again,'” Rhule said. “Then you have to re-sign a contract. It just doesn’t make sense to me. So I’m glad they fixed it. And basketball had one. I was like, ‘Well, why does basketball have one and we have two?’ So I’m happy.”

Matt Rhule: ‘Why don’t we just do everything the NFL does?’

As he assessed when players can enter the transfer portal, Matt Rhule looked back to his time in the NFL. The league has its own “year,” meaning players can only speak with teams and sign after certain dates. Then, there’s the draft, training camp and other key dates.

Rhule argued college football should follow a similar model, especially with revenue-sharing in place. That, he said, could be a step toward welcome change.

“It’s so easy, to me, in college,” Rhule said. “We just have the NFL – the best-run, most parity, best league in the world and they have the best TV viewership. They have everything. Why don’t we just do everything that the NFL does? They have a league year, comes to an end, you have a tampering period, you have free agency, then you have draft. We pay guys from June to July, but they can leave in January. That makes no sense. Just wait [and see] what’s going to happen. You’re gonna have some coaches that get fired, and the new coach comes in and he’s trying to build his team in the January portal, and they have no money left. You’re going have people writing waivers. It just doesn’t make any sense.

“Whenever free agency is – which is what the portal is, free agency – that should be the financial year. But I say that in the Big Ten meetings and people look at me like I have three heads, so I’m like, ‘Alright, whatever. Just do what you want.’ We’ll be fine here. We’ve got a great setup. We’ve got really smart people. … We have the right people in the athletic administration helping us. It doesn’t matter as much to me. I’d just like to see the game make sense.”