Skip to main content
Tennessee

SEC coaches lobby for January-only transfer portal window

On3 imageby:Brent Hubbs•05/28/25•

Brent_Hubbs

Checker Neyland, Tennessee Football | Tennessee Athletics
KNOXVILLE, TN - October 12, 2024 - The Tennessee Volunteers running through the "T" during the game between the Florida Gators and the Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, TN. Photo By Avery Bane/Tennessee Athletics

Stop me if you have heard this one before. College football doesn’t agree on something. 

Across the board it appears football coaches all agree that the sport needs one transfer portal window not two. But when that window should exist is a different question. 

Tuesday, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart called eliminating two windows the most important decision college football needs to make. And he made it perfectly clear he is a January window guy noting other sports deal with the portal during their championship runs. College basketball deals with it as does baseball and softball. 

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel is not doing any media while in Destin at the Spring Meetings, but he agrees with Smart on the January window. Heupel and Smart are like a lot of coaches in they want their roster set heading into spring. 

“I think the culture piece is extremely important in particular at this time of the year ’cause there’s not a lot of time with them before you get to training camp,” Heupel said following the spring game of 2024. “So it’s gotta be mature guys that you’re bringing into your program, too.”

Tennessee brought in three players in the spring window, but it was more out of necessity than anything else. Nico Iamaleava departed at the end of spring practice sending the Vols into scramble mode for a signal caller landing Joey Aguilar and Tennessee took Colton Hood after the injury to Jermod McCoy plus the departures in the spring of Jakobe Thomas and Christian Charles to the portal. Lastly, Tennessee took Josh Schell from Grand Valley State on the defensive line in part because Nathan Robinson has struggled to stay healthy and Jamal Wallace’s health will likely prevent him from being a factor. 

Currently the proposed dates from the FBS coaches is to have the window from January 2nd to January 12th. That proposal needs approval from the NCAA oversight committee and council and SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said that’s the overall preference of his league. 

While it appears many want the January window, there is some opposition to it. Earlier this spring, Ohio State AD Ross Bjork called for a spring window noting the fact that the calendar year for revenue sharing will run July 1-June 30 each year and he noted that May seems most logical. 

“May makes the most sense” to align player contracts with the portal, Bjork told ESPN back in April. 

The desire to have your roster set come February as Heupel and Smart have said makes a lot of sense and if I were a coach I would be in that camp. 

However, a spring window would allow a coach to replace a player who was injured in spring practice, but with less and less contact in spring, how big of a factor is that. Probably not much. 

In my opinion, the biggest question is would a May window slow down the number of transfers? Would players be less willing to transfer given they would have only 100 days or so to learn a system and be ready for the fall? Would coaches be less willing to take transfers in the spring focusing more on their current roster because of the short window to get players ready. 

The SEC hopes that we will never know as they continue to lobby this week for a shortened January only window. 

You may also like