The college football regular season is officially over, save for America’s game next weekend between Army and Navy. While teams’ attention will turn to preparing for the college football playoffs or a bowl game, they must also focus on recruiting for the 2024 season, which includes perusing the NCAA transfer portal for additional talent.
The transfer portal was created in the fall of 2018 to manage the process of student-athletes transferring to other schools. The purpose of the portal is to make the transfer process more transparent and allow student-athletes to publicize their availability to other programs.
While undergraduate student-athletes can only enter the portal during the designated windows unless there are extenuating circumstances like a head coach firing, graduate student-athletes can enter the portal at any time during the academic year as long as they meet the deadlines of May 1 for fall and winter sports and July 1 for sports played in the spring.
There are two official NCAA transfer portal windows each year, one in the fall and one in the spring. The fall window opens the day after championship selections and remains open for 45 days, and the spring window opens May 1-15. For student-athletes participating in the College Football Playoffs, there is an additional open window beginning the day after the championship game and lasting for 14 days.
So, the NCAA transfer portal will officially open for the fall window tomorrow, December 4, the day after championship and bowl selections. Until early January, college football players will have the opportunity to declare their intentions to play elsewhere and hit the portal. Though they must enter their name in the portal during the open window, they do not have to lock down their transfer destination during that time.
The official fall transfer window is December 4, 2023, to January 2, 2024, per ESPN. More than 2,100 athletes entered the NCAA transfer portal last fall, and many more are expected to do so this year.