Rhett Lashlee, SMU will navigate single transfer portal window for college football
SMU and colleges around the country will have a new, single one-time college football transfer window to navigate. The NCAA Division I Administrative Committee passed dates for the one-time-only college football transfer portal on Tuesday. The 2025 college football transfer portal will last from Jan. 2 to Jan. 16, the NCAA announced.
The committee’s action is not final until its meeting concludes on Wednesday. Moving forward, the entire Division I football notification of transfer windows will be Jan 2-16.
There’s still a 30-day window that begins when a program fires a coach. Programs like UCLA, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State and Arkansas are among the schools dealing with that midseason.
The change will please SMU’s staff as now the window will happen after almost every team is done with postseason play, save for a handful playing deep into the College Football Playoff.
Back in December, SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee stumped for a single transfer portal window that was not in December ahead of postseason play. SMU quarterback Preston Stone was in the transfer portal while backup Penn State quarterback Beau Pribula was as well.
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The difference was Stone stayed with SMU’s team during the postseason while Pribula left the Nittany Lions. Stone and Pribula ended up at Northwestern and Missouri, respectively.
“It’s terrible. I feel so awful for our kids and kids around the country,” Lashlee said in December ahead of SMU’s College Football Playoff appearance. “You know, we talk about making a system that is all great for them, but we haven’t. I mean, that’s part of your job as adults is to do what’s best for young people, not what they want necessarily. And they don’t want this. Yes, they want the ability to transfer and go where they want to go if they don’t like their situation. Yes, they want the ability to make money on their name, image, and likeness. Neither one of those are bad things. There’s no other sport at all that has free agency in the season. It’s sad. It’s terrible. You hear the story about their quarterback saying, I don’t have a choice. That’s wrong. That’s unacceptable. That’s not okay. He shouldn’t have to make that decision. Preston here is doing the same thing. Now he has chosen to stay with us and we’re working with him, but it’s still a juggling act for him. Oh, and let’s not forget they’re in finals right now.
“So yeah, the really easy thing is you don’t have a transfer portal in December. That’s a really easy answer. And it solves all the problems. Like why in the world would we put kids in a position where they got to decide, do I transfer or play in the playoff? Do I transfer or play in my bowl game? And scholastically, it doesn’t make sense either because your years end in May, not in December. And so we gotta look long and hard at the schedule.
