It appears likely there will be only one transfer portal window in college football sooner than later, but there’s still one big detail to be determined: When will that transfer window be?
For the past three years, there have been two windows for college football players to enter the transfer portal, one starting in December following the conclusion of the regular season and one in April at the end of the spring practice season. Coaches and administrators across college football, however, are eager to limit transfer movement to just one window each year.
Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork believes that window should be in the spring. He’s of that opinion based on the timing of both the end of the academic year and the start of revenue-sharing agreements, as the academic year for Ohio State and most other universities ends in May while annual revenue-sharing contracts with athletes under the new model created by the House v. NCAA settlement will run from July to June.
“If we ever say that we care about academics and we want to live by that, then I think the transfer portal window should be in the spring. And then now that you have a revenue sharing contract, where you will have an MOU with an athlete, from a fiscal management standpoint, it's better to put it in the spring,” Bjork said Thursday.
Ryan Day has also suggested that he’s in favor of a spring transfer window, citing the strain that the winter portal window puts on teams who make deep runs in the College Football Playoff. Because players on CFP teams get an additional five-day window to enter the portal after their season ends, Ohio State had to fight off tampering efforts for many of its players last January following the national championship game, while it was unable to replace players who entered the portal during that window – most notably backup defensive tackle Hero Kanu – because the portal had already closed for every team other than Ohio State and Notre Dame.
“For us, if we didn't have the second transfer portal window (in the spring), that is very, very difficult, because we're trying to make decisions about next year yet our year isn't even done yet,” Ryan Day said during an appearance on The Joel Klatt Show in February. “That affects your current roster, and it's just messy. So I think you got to have two portals, unless you're going to finish the season sooner. But if you're finishing the season on January 20th, you can't have just one portal window (in the winter).”
“If we ever say that we care about academics and we want to live by that, then I think the transfer portal window should be in the spring.”– Ross Bjork on his push for a spring transfer portal window
The elimination of the winter portal window would have some cons, particularly the fact that teams wouldn’t be able to add transfers to their rosters for spring practice. But the positives would outweigh the negatives for teams like Ohio State that expect to be competing for national championships every January.
The negatives might outweigh the positives for everyone else, however, and that’s why Ohio State appears to be in the minority with its desire for a spring transfer window.
The Athletic’s Chris Vannini reported Friday that momentum is building for a move to just one transfer portal window in college football. A final decision on when that portal window would be hasn’t yet been made, but one of Vannini’s sources described the preference for January over April across the sport “as an 80-20 split.” The American Football Coaches Association proposed a 10-day window that would run from Jan. 2-12 in 2026, which would come after the majority of bowl games except for the College Football Playoff semifinals and national championship game but would still be early enough for players to transfer into new schools in time for the spring semester.
“I want January,” Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire said, per Vannini. “I want to get my team, and I want to roll and get ready for winter conditioning, spring football, and take that team into the fall.”
An early January window with no spring window would make navigating the portal even more difficult than it already is for the teams that make deep CFP runs, as they’d have no choice but to evaluate the transfer market and make roster decisions in the midst of trying to win a national title. But those teams might not find much sympathy from the rest of college football.
“It’s really hard to be playing in a championship setting and having to deal with that,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart told reporters last month at SEC spring meetings. “When I brought that up as a complaint or a problem, I was told there’s no crying from the yacht.”
Regardless of which transfer window is ultimately chosen, Bjork believes college football needs a comprehensive calendar to govern what will happen over the course of the year from preseason camp, the regular season and the College Football Playoff to the transfer portal, signing day, spring practices, OTAs and more. And Bjork believes those details need to be hammered out as soon as possible with the 2025 college football season now under three months away.
“We have to keep pushing that. My colleagues and I in the Big Ten, we want to keep pushing that. We'll collaborate, we'll communicate, but we think we need to get that done sooner rather than later,” Bjork said. “‘Cause fall will be here soon, and all of these things are gonna be on top of us, and we need to have that transfer portal window cleaned up, for sure.”
