Kirby Smart voices opinion on who should decide NCAA transfer portal window

As discussions continue about the future of the NCAA transfer portal window, the question remains who will make that decision. Coaches have held discussions about potential changes, but Georgia coach Kirby Smart shared who he thinks should decide what things look like down the road.

Smart called for the House v. NCAA settlement implementation committee to be in charge of finalizing the transfer windows. The group of 10 athletics directors from the Power Five conferences will play central roles in implementing the terms of the agreement if Judge Claudia Wilken grants final approval.

While the transfer portal is not part of the settlement terms, Smart said the committee will have to make decisions on issues outside of the agreement. That, he argued, includes the transfer windows.

“I think it’d be a great question to ask some people, but my opinion is the implementation committee, which comes from the settlement,” Smart said from the SEC spring meetings in Destin when asked who’s in charge of deciding the portal windows. “Appointed [10] ADs, two from each Power [Five] conference, who hear the conference’s perspective. And ultimately, those [10] ADs – which are appointed and they’re kind of coming off the settlement – will have to make a lot of implementation decisions that are not part of the settlement. The ‘nuggets,’ let’s call it. Here’s the settlement, and then the nuggets are going to come from these [10] ADs.

“That’s very critical, in my mind. It’s not really talked about. Nobody’s talking about the portal day. They just don’t think it’s a big deal. Is it two? Is it one? When is it?”

Because the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC and NCAA are the named defendants of the House v. NCAA lawsuit, they are charged with regulating and enforcing the settlement. When the suit was filed, the Pac-12 still had 12 members.

The committee met multiple times in recent months ahead of April’s final approval hearing in front of Wilken in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Among the tasks of the athletic director group will be drafting rules to facilitate compliance, creating a system to ensure that NIL deals are legitimate and forming an entity to enforce the settlement rules.

The group of 10 athletic directors on the committee includes Texas A&M’s Trev Alberts, Oregon State’s Scott Barnes, Kentucky’s Mitch Barnhart, Georgia Tech’s J Batt, Ohio State’s Ross Bjork, Washington’s Pat Chun, Cincinnati’s John Cunningham, Clemson’s Graham Neff, Washington State’s Anne McCoy and Arizona’s Desireé Reed-Francois.