The transfer portal hasn’t been around for very long, but it has already changed college football forever. Instead of feeling like the sport beloved by many for the last century, college football now just feels like a glorified professional league, but somehow worse because of the lack of rules and control. And the transfer portal is one of the biggest reasons why.
There are a lot of issues fans and coaches have with the portal, but the biggest pain point is when the portal actually opens. This is a detail that Kirby Smart discussed in length on Tuesday, and it’s so important to him that he said it’s the biggest decision in all of college football “by far.”
"The biggest decision that has to be made in college football right now, by far to me, by far, is when is the portal window and is there one or two?" Smart shared via 247sports.com. "That's not being decided by us today. A lot of people don't even know how it's getting decided. Who's deciding it? … It needs to happen sometime in January. There is an outcry. There are schools, there's different conferences that feel like it should not fall during the playing season. I would love that. I would love to be able to play the season without it."
Fixing the transfer portal window is quite simple
College football currently has two windows where players are allowed to enter the transfer portal. The first begins in early December right after the conference championship games are played that lasts throughout most of the month. The second is during the second half of April after most teams are done with spring practice.
The most obvious issue with the transfer portal window is that it opens during the season. Half of the country is preparing for their bowl game or the College Football Playoff when the portal opens in December, which makes very little sense. Why would any coach want to worry about who’s going to leave their program while also preparing to compete for a National Championship?
On top of that, having two windows doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either. It’s not as bad as the transfer portal opening in December, but it might not be a bad idea to shrink it to one window for simplicity sake.
Two realistic options for changing the transfer portal window
Assuming the NCAA does opt to move to one transfer portal window (which is something they have to do if they want to save the sport), they have two realistic options. Opening the transfer portal in the beginning of January for 10 days when the season is almost over is a good option. Sure the two teams in the National Championship game will still be in season, but the portal has to open to give players a chance to move schools before the start of the spring semester if they opt to go with this January timeline.
The second (and preferred option) would be to open the portal at the end of April after spring ball. This would give players and teams a chance to feel out their team for next year during the spring so nobody jumps into the portal too soon and regrets their decision.
Regardless of what people think the best option is, the NCAA has to make a change. If someone like Smart at a program like Georgia thinks it’s the most important decision by far, then that shows how important it really is. So the NCAA needs to do something now, and that should begin with getting rid of the December transfer portal window.