Keeping up with all the changes in the transfer portal can feel like trying to keep up with Lamar Jackson on a football field.
Guess what? There are more changes coming.
The NCAA Division I Administrative Committee passed dates for the one-time-only college football transfer portal on Tuesday. The 2025-26 college football transfer portal will last 15 days, spanning from Jan. 2 to Jan. 16, the NCAA announced.
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The committee’s action is not final until its meeting concludes on Wednesday. Moving forward, the entire Division I football notification of transfer windows will be Jan 2-16. As has been the previous standard, athletes on College Football Playoff teams still playing would have 5 days beginning the day after their team’s final game to enter the transfer portal.
Players have 15 days to enter the portal, but are not under a deadline to commit when they enter. Traditionally, the deadline for committing is how late a school can enroll a player through admissions.
That second part in the statement above is key. There won’t be any rush for a player to commit once they are in the portal. They just have a deadline on when to enter it.
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If a head coach is fired, the transfer portal will not open for players immediately. The NCAA announced on Tuesday that moving forward, players will only have 15 days to enter the portal after a coaching change instead of 30 days. Players will also have to wait five days after a new coach is hired or announced.
Graduate transfers also cannot enter the transfer portal until Jan. 2 with the new one-time-only portal window. Back in January at the American Football Coaches Association convention in Charlotte, head coaches proposed to move the transfer portal to a 10-day window in early January after bowl games, with the spring window eliminated.
The move to a one-time-only portal is supposed to allow schools to finish their season with their entire team before the transfer portal opens. With the move, the spring transfer portal window has been eliminated. The April portal window had long been a point of frustration for coaches and staffers, with players using the spring as a last point of leverage for cash before the fall.
Anything to help regulate the portal is a good thing. It can be a logistical nightmare for coaches, players, athletic departments, and media members.
More than 1,100 FBS scholarship players entered the transfer portal in April 2025 alone.
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That’s too many to even think about.
We knew at some point there would be some regulations to help combat the fast-moving transfer portal.
