NCAA making significant transfer portal changes

On Wednesday, the NCAA announced some significant upcoming changes to the recruiting calendar, specifically as it pertains to the transfer portal.

Officially, the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee has recommended an alteration to the current transfer portal window(s) that would make players–both undergraduate and graduate–eligible to enter the portal during a 10-day window between January 2nd and January 11th.

Any player participating in a postseason game on or after January 7th would receive an additional five days to begin the process of entering the portal (via written notification of intention to transfer or official portal entry) following the end of the season.

The current structure includes a 20-day window in December and a separate 10-day window in April. As things stand, graduate students can enter the transfer portal at any time, as well.

This recommendation will not become official NCAA policy until an approval vote by the Division I Administrative Committee. That vote is expected to happen by October 1st.

However, according to a report from On3’s Pete Nakos, a vote has already passed to formally eliminate the spring portal window and adopt a single window. The details (such as “how long?”, “when?”, and “for whom?”) have yet to be decided officially.

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Essentially, pending another vote, this means that the NCAA is eliminating the spring portal window altogether and then would be backing up the existing winter window to January. However, the delay in the winter window would not shift the calendar beyond the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.

The proposed rule change also seemingly would eliminate the ability for graduate transfers to hit the portal without restriction. It would not eliminate the 30-day transfer portal window that opens for players at schools with a fired head coach.

The NCAA Division I Administrative Committee will also vote on several other related rule changes.

Another recommendation would make December a “dead period.” That would eliminate in-person recruiting visits (on-campus or in-home) during December. Other forms of contact would be permissible.

An additional recommendation would back up the official offer threshold to November 15th of a high school prospect’s senior year. Currently, those official offers can come in as early as August 1st of a player’s senior year. Naturally, schools could still make verbal offers much sooner.

That recommendation would also affect when a player binds himself to a school. Currently, once a player signs his financial aid paperwork with a school, another school cannot contact that player. If passed, this recommendation would shift that to begin when a player signs any financial agreement with a school, including House Settlement-related NIL benefit contracts.

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