CFB: Fixing the Transfer Portal

In modern-day college football, one of the most anticipated parts of the season comes before the national championship game is played and doesn’t even take place on the field. The event I’m talking about is the opening of the transfer portal.

The portal’s history begins in October of 2018, when the NCAA decided to establish the website as a tool to make the transfer process easier and more manageable.

Back in those days however, only graduate transfers were granted with immediate eligibility. Underclassmen were required to sit out a year, unless a waiver was granted to the player by the NCAA to play right away.

In 2021 though, the NCAA axed the waiver rule, granting every athlete who enters the portal an opportunity to contribute at their next school immediately. Another rule that came out of this was the ability to transfer multiple times without penalty.

The ability for players to earn money through NIL has also affected the portal, basically giving college football a “free agency” period like the NFL.

There used to be two portal windows, one in December after the regular season and one in April after spring practices. After FBS coaches met earlier this year, though, they agreed on an idea to move to one window.

This window opened on January 2nd, and closes on the 16th.

While I agree that having one window is better than having two, I still disagree with the fact that the window opens while playoff teams are fighting for a national championship.

Last year, Penn State’s Beau Pribula entered the portal before their playoff run, which ended up hurting the versatility of the Nittany Lion offense. I can’t blame Pribula, however, as he was forced to make a difficult decision on what was best for his future.

This year, we had Lane Kiffin leaving his Ole Miss squad before the playoff to be the next head coach at LSU. This raised some controversy over Kiffin being able to try and convince his former players to leave a playoff team while they were in pursuit of a title.

With how the college football schedule is laid out, there’s no perfect answer for how to fix the transfer portal, but I’m going to take a crack at it.

Move the portal window to April

My first idea would be to move the transfer window to after the end of spring ball. By that time, coaches and players will have a rough idea of what the depth chart may look like, and this can allow players to seek better opportunities if they so desire.

The window will be open for 15 days, opening on the 16th and closing on the 30th. This allows for players to finish the current semester at their school, while also being enrolled at the new school before summer.

Although this is shortening their practice time with their new team, it allows for players to go through a whole spring with their current school, keep developing, and make a decision based on that development.

Also, the NFL does free agency in the spring, so moving players around before summer has been proven to work.

Create NIL contracts

This idea comes from college football analyst Joel Klatt, but it is something that I agree with. Since revenue sharing is now legal in college football and schools can pay players directly, it only makes sense that contracts become a part of college football.

Whether it be one year or multiple years, having players sign contracts can make the portal smaller and less of a chaotic mess.

If a player legally binds themself to a university for multiple years, then they cannot transfer, simple as that.

Make a transfer cap

This unique idea comes from Tom Williams of Mike Farrell Sports, but I thought it was interesting. Creating a cap on transfers could help mitigate the offseason disasters that can occur at smaller schools or schools that are changing coaches.

The cap would consist of a total number of outgoing and incoming transfers, so that rosters can’t be raided, and schools can’t just build half of a roster through the portal.

I propose that this cap be set at 30 transfers. This makes an even 15 outgoing and 15 incoming transfers.

Who transfers? Well, it can be like the MLB’s arbitration system, by bringing in a third party mitigators to decide on factors like playing time and depth chart position to see who should get one of the transfer slots.

Evan Pochas is a third-year student studying broadcast journalism. To contact him, email ejp5753@psu.edu.