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Coaches across the country rejoiced last fall when the NCAA announced the elimination of the spring transfer portal.
Beginning with the 2026 season, there's now only one transfer portal window. The single window ran from Jan. 2-16, 2026, allowing players to freely move from one program to another.
It was an especially busy transfer window for Utah as new head coach Morgan Scalley took over and Kyle Whittingham, who had "stepped down" at Utah in late December, accepted the Michigan job.
In total, 26 players transferred away from Utah, including safety Tao Johnson , cornerback Smith Snowden and defensive end John Henry Daley . Scalley and the Utes also made use of the transfer portal, welcoming in 18 players , including Utah State receiver Braden Pegan, Wyoming defensive tackle Lucas Samsula, San Jose State running back Steve Chavez-Soto and Montana State offensive tackle Cedric Jefferson.
With the elimination of the spring transfer portal, players can't leave just a few months before the season kicks off, and theoretically, the roster that you go into spring ball with will be the same as your roster to open the season.
That helps a lot for continuity and chemistry and ensures that a player can't be picked off by a bigger school with a breakout spring performance.
Teams can still add players that remain in the transfer portal and don't have a new team at any time.
Without the threat of players leaving in the spring transfer portal, there won't be as many NIL and revenue sharing contract renegotiations in the spring, too.
"Cut down on the tampering and renegotiations and that type of thing. And then you know what you have, what your roster is. You don't have to wait until after spring ball to know who you got on your team and where your deficiencies are and what you have to do. I don't see any negatives to it at all. I think it's a positive all the way around," Whittingham said in October.
But even with the elimination of the spring portal, some programs — and the NCAA — are wary of players leaving via a method used by former BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff .
In June, Retzlaff faced a seven-game suspension for violating BYU 's honor code. Both portal windows had passed, but Retzlaff withdrew from BYU, enrolled at Tulane and walked onto the team.
Retzlaff started for Tulane, throwing for 3,168 yards and 15 touchdowns as the Green Wave made a College Football Playoff appearance.
The fear among some programs is that more players could follow that route — withdrawing and then walking on to a team while being paid third-party NIL money.
The NCAA has proposed harsh penalties to try and prevent that scenario from happening.
If the rule is approved, per the NCAA, "once an enrolled student-athlete who was not active in the transfer portal at the time of transfer participates in any athletically related activity at the next school, the following actions would occur:
The head coach would be prohibited from all football (recruiting and on-field coaching) and administrative duties (team meetings) for six contests.
The school would be fined 20% of its football budget.
The school would be required to reduce the number of roster spots by five for the next season, regardless of the head coach's employment status at the school."
The NCAA's Division I Cabinet will vote on the measure in April. If it passes, the new legislation would help ease coaches' minds and make sure their roster will remain intact from January until the end of the season.
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