The rules surrounding the college football transfer portal have changed once again.
On Wednesday, the NCAA announced it has eliminated the spring college football transfer portal window.
The Division I Administrative committee voted to eliminate the spring transfer portal window, but has not approved dates for the January transfer portal window. The discussed January portal window timeframe is between January 2 and 11.
Multiple FBS coaches advocated for a shift to only one transfer portal window last January, and both oversight committees voted on the changes this month. The move signals a big shift in the length and timing of the transfer portal windows.
The initial proposal stipulates that players wait until January 2 (the day after the National Championship game) to enter their names into the portal, and have 10 days to enter the portal with no deadline to sign once their names are entered.
Last season, the winter transfer portal window was open from December 9 to 28 and the spring transfer portal window was open from April 16 to 25.
According to ESPN, the number of transfers to enter the portal was over 3,200 during the 2024-2025 windows.
How closing the spring window affects Iowa Football
Iowa Head Coach Kirk Ferentz has long been against using the transfer portal to build his roster. He would rather recruit players and develop them in the system than pay or recruit players from the portal.
Ferentz remarked during a spring press conference that Iowa always boasts one of the lowest transfer portal usage rates, and the portal is not how they want to build their program.
After the announcement that the NCAA is closing the spring transfer portal window, the Iowa program will not be overly affected by the change because they hardly use the portal to begin with.
Love it or hate it, Ferentz remains against extensively using the portal, so this decision will not have a tremendous effect on the program.