While the transfer portal for college football—and all collegiate sports—was previously reduced to one window last fall, it did not make the management of the portal any less chaotic. If anything, it pumped up the stress for many coaches in Division I programs, mainly because the window is now incredibly short, spanning from January 2 through January 16. The transfer portal rules are much, much different than a couple of years ago, as players now have free reign to transfer each academic year to another school without penalty.
This condensing of the spring window to some, however, may have done more harm than good. First, this approach to the new portal left the four teams competing in the remainder of the college football playoff having to prepare to play games, while hosting recruits and retaining players on the roster. The upside, especially in Indiana’s case, is that players will want to transfer somewhere where there is tons of success. Yet the downside in Oregon’s case was that their running back room was almost completely empty, from a combination of injuries and players in the portal. On top of the portal being a month after early signing day for high school recruits—when most recruits tend to sign—along with changes in entire staffs, this whole time proved to be absolutely chaotic for coaches. Five (!) teams this offseason added 70+ players to their roster. That certainly speaks to the chaotic mess the portal has become.
Curious as to how many players entered the portal at each level? Look no further than these jaw dropping numbers: 3,972 players from Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), 2,771 from Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), and 4,222 from Division II and III. This is quite an insane statistic, with some players still not finding a new home as of yet. For the amount of transferring that’s gone on, some of the biggest stories have involved (illegal) tampering, meaning when one school reaches out to a player at another school when that player is still enrolled. Take the Luke Ferrelli news, for example. He transferred from The University of California, Berkeley to Clemson University. Then, he proceeded to enroll at the school, rent a car and an apartment, participate in team meetings, and take part in classes. But the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) came around and offered much more money—even though he just arrived at Clemson!—and then left right before the portal ended. Numerous other stories have come up with players like Darian Mensah, Demond Williams Jr and likely many other lesser known players. After all, tampering happens in other collegiate sports too! In response to this chaos, is there any clear solution? Not exactly. Many have proposed different solutions, but nothing has come through as of yet. For coaches of these schools, nevertheless, their hope is that some change will come, reducing the chaos that the portal has caused and supersized.