Ohio State head coach Ryan Day has had enough of the current chaos surrounding college football’s Transfer Portal windows, and he’s now calling for a serious shakeup.
It’s not a small suggestion. If adopted, it would dramatically change the college football calendar.
During an appearance on the College GameDay Podcast, Day didn’t mince words. “I do believe that there should be one Transfer Portal in the spring only,” he said. “I think for us to try to do a Transfer Portal, like for instance, we had the Transfer Portal open and close before our season was even over. How do you even explain that?”
And really, how do you explain that? The current setup forces programs to juggle bowl game or College Football Playoff prep with the possibility of losing players—mid-prep—to other teams.
A Broken System That Needs Fixing
December has become a brutal month for college coaches. Between the early signing period, bowl game prep, and the opening of the Transfer Portal, it’s a three-headed monster. Coaches are recruiting high schoolers, trying to game-plan for big postseason games, and simultaneously working to hold onto their own rosters.
Day pointed to how the portal stayed open for just five days after Ohio State’s season ended. In that small window, other programs zeroed in on Ohio State and Notre Dame—two schools that were still playing when other programs had already finished their seasons.
“So, the only people that are available is Notre Dame and Ohio State players where people can go and just go bid on them,” Day said. “We lost seven players when that happened.”
Day’s suggestion to move everything to the spring and align it with upcoming revenue-sharing contracts makes some sense, at least on the surface. If schools begin operating under fiscal year-based contracts—like July to June, which is being discussed in future NIL frameworks—then having the portal open during that same time frame would be far more logical.
“If the contracts are going to happen because of the revenue share from July to June… or however we end up deciding on that,” Day added, “then that’s when the portal should be open in my opinion.”
There are, of course, potential issues with moving everything to spring. Athletes transferring in May or June is already a problem, but there would at least be one uniform period, rather than two.
“It just makes sense to have one portal window,” he emphasized. “And I think if we can at least get that done, we’re at least making progress. If we get the enforcement done, one Transfer Portal, and then at least we’re moving in the right direction.”
While Day makes a good point, it's still not exactly what I believe most college football coaches or fans want to see. To me, it makes more sense to have the single portal window take place at the end o the season — like in mid-to-late January.
Yes, that can be a problem in terms of enrollment calendars, but honestly, why does that matter anymore? We're basically done pretending that these are student-athletes, and colleges have had no trouble enrolling athletes in the past who entered late — just like we saw from Ohio State and Notre Dame's defections after the national championship.