CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) coaches voted unanimously on Tuesday in favor of a proposal that would shorten college football’s transfer window to a 10-day period in January to preserve the integrity of the bowl season and put guardrails on a system that many coaches lament is completely broken.

During a meeting at the 2025 American Football Coaches Association convention, coaches supported a move to a single portal window starting with the 2025-26 school year from Jan. 2 to Jan. 12. The move would eliminate the current December and April portal windows and use a single, shorter window. The recommendation now moves to the NCAA Oversight Committee and ultimately to the NCAA Division I Board of Governors for final approval, but that's far from guaranteed.

“These recommendations are intended to give student-athletes and coaches more opportunities to focus on their seasons while preserving the opportunity for students who choose to transfer to continue transferring during the traditional spring semester,” said AFCA President Craig Bohl. "We looked at a variety of information. I'm sure our coaches care deeply about our student-athletes, so this decision was made through the filter of making them more stable and able to move forward."

Concerns surrounding the existing portal window are primarily due to the time crunch of early December (when the postseason, high school recruiting and portals all overlap) and the impact on bowl season.

This year alone, Penn State has missed two postseason games without backup quarterback Beau Pribula after entering the portal in December, while Marshall was left with a heavy personnel deficit after the regular season. Lost and forced to opt out of bowl game.

“We want to protect the season and its sanctity, but at the same time, you’re trying to fit in a competitive or academic calendar to be in sync, and that’s a challenge,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said. "We're people on the ground and we know what the problem is and we know probably what the best solution is, so in order for everyone to be on the same page and agree on the best path forward, I think we did that."

In theory, the January window would allow players to finish the season with their current teams while still finding a new home early enough to register for the spring semester and play spring football with the new program.

How effective the proposal will be in curbing December opt-outs and what the lack of a spring transfer window means for players remains to be discussed and could become a significant sticking point as the proposal moves through the NCAA approval process.

“As a coach, it’s important to express some of the challenges that student-athletes encounter,” Ball said. "When we rolled out the window, we had good intentions but had unintended consequences. So we spent a lot of time talking about those challenges and how to make decisions to improve football."