Future of transfer portal takes spotlight as Kirby Smart calls it college football's 'biggest decision'

Kirby Smart was ready to pounce. This week at SEC spring meetings, hot-button issues include College Football Playoff expansion, the impact of the yet-to-be-approved House v. NCAA settlement and a nine-game SEC schedule.

But asked about the transfer portal on Tuesday, the two-time national champion head coach did not hold back. While commissioners and presidents debate the future of the sport, the Georgia head coach shed light on the transfer portal discussion currently taking place among the coaching ranks.

“The biggest decision that has to be made in college football right now, by far, to me, is when is the portal window, and is there one or two?” Smart said. “That’s not being decided by us today. A lot of people don’t even know how it’s getting decided, who’s deciding it.”

The NCAA Division I Committee voted in October to shorten the college football window from 45 days to 30. The American Football Coaches Association proposed in January to move the transfer portal to a 10-day window in early January after bowl games, with the spring window eliminated.

In recent years, the spring portal has become a contentious issue for programs. Tennessee lost starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava to free agency in April following a public, NIL-fueled divorce. It’s just the latest example of last-minute contract negotiations before players are locked in on rosters for the season.

“The second portal, you’re getting shook down twice,” Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman told On3 last week.

The current transfer portal format calls for the winter window to open in December, the Monday after the College Football Playoff field is announced. With the portal starting in the middle of December, it carries into the postseason. This last winter, Penn State quarterback Beau Pribula opted to enter the portal and transfer to Missouri, leaving the Nittany Lions before the start of the CFP.

“It’s really hard to be playing in a championship setting and having to deal with that,” Smart said Tuesday. “But when I brought that up as a complaint, it was told to me, ‘There’s no crying from the yacht.’ So if you’re going to play in these environments, you have to be willing to do that. Now it’s we can’t do that.”

Most Power Four coaches agree that college football needs a single portal window, instead of the current two-window setup. But when exactly free agency should be is a split issue.

“If you’re asking me, I always lend to what are the professional models, and what do they look like,” Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko said Tuesday at SEC spring meetings. “It certainly seems free agency happens once, not twice. And it happens right after the season, before you start practicing. That seems to be the landscape for every single professional league across the world. So why do we believe that this shouldn’t be how this works is hard to get your head wrapped around.”

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian echoed Elko’s views on the portal. “I do think we’re all in agreement that one transfer portal would be beneficial,” he said. “As coaches, we’re team builders. That’s what we do. And it’s hard to build a team when you’ve got two different portal windows, and you’re not sure who’s on your team.”

Because the CFP now stretches into late January, some coaches believe a single portal window should be held later in January. That way, rosters will be set entering the second half of the academic calendar and spring practice.

Others are proponents of a spring-only portal, distancing free agency from the postseason. But in that hypothetical, rosters would not be finalized until April or May, giving coaches less face time with players. More than 4,900 players entered the FBS transfer portal this offseason.

“There’s a large contingency that’s growing now, trying to push an April, maybe May portal,” Smart said. “They want to practice in June. I want y’all to think about June for us. We have 10 days of high school camp in June. We believe in using those across the Southeast. We use 10 days. We also have official visits every weekend. So now we’re going to practice with our team in that same window. Something’s going to suffer.”

Next steps for how to reshape the college football transfer portal remain vague. Nothing is expected to come down before the House v. NCAA settlement is officially approved.

The NCAA Division I Committee could take action. Smart believes the settlement’s implementation committee should take charge. Lawmakers have even introduced legislation in the last 18 months that would restructure the sport’s transfer portal.

“It’s not really talked about,” Smart said. “Nobody’s talking about the portal. They just don’t think it’s a big deal.”