College football coaches want a fix for the transfer portal? Ending Spring Practice

Some problems don’t have a simple solution. Call them a tricky wicket, a wicked problem, or the Riemann Hypothesis.

Or the windows of the college football transfer portal.

Coaches from Texas’ Steve Sarkisian to Mississippi’s Lane Kiffin have complained in recent days that the sport’s winter transfer period disrupts the postseason, and they’re not wrong.

The portal opened on December 9. It will close to new entries after December 28, giving players 20 days to decide whether to stay or leave. Players on teams participating in the College Football Playoff have five additional days to enter the portal after their team’s season ends.

The timing of this transfer period means that some players from playoff teams entered the portal and left their current team before the end of the season.

Beyond the playoffs, consider Duke, Ole Miss’ opponent in the Gator Bowl. Blue Devils starting quarterback Maalik Murphy entered the portal last week. He won’t play in the bowl game as he searches for a new team, leaving Duke to play a backup quarterback while chasing a 10th win that would tie a program record for wins in a single season.

“The season is not over yet and there is an open free agency window,” Kiffin said during a news conference at the Gator Bowl, while calling the setup a “stupid system” and adding that you wouldn’t see something like that in the NFL.

In Texas, several Longhorns entered the portal before their first-round playoff game Saturday against Clemson, including a few players who remained with the team for CFP preparation even while in the portal.

“Imagine NFL players becoming free agents the day they announce who will make the playoffs,” Sargsyan told reporters. “That’s what happens in college football.”

The NFL, however, offers no apples-to-apples comparison. On the one hand, NFL players sign employment contracts, while the NCAA remains adamant about not recruiting college athletes. But what’s more important is that it remains a reality college soccer. Athletes are students and the academic calendar affects transfer windows.

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Solving the winter transfer problem is not that simple, but here is an idea

Moving the transfer portal after the season would better accommodate coaches pursuing a national championship, but transfer athletes must enroll at their next school in time for the upcoming semester. And the expansion of the playoffs lengthened the season, stretching it until the third week of January.

Consider the Texas and Ole Miss academic calendars. The spring semester at Texas begins Jan. 13, one week before the national championship game, while classes at Ole Miss begin Jan. 21, one day after the national championship game.

So, how about scrapping the winter transfer window altogether and reducing it to a one-stop shop in April? This would fit the playoff and academic schedules, but coaches would complain that not having transfers in place for spring practice would hamper their ability to prepare for the upcoming season.

Consider a school like Auburn, which needs to replace its starting quarterback. The Tigers announced the addition of Oklahoma transfer Jackson Arnold on Saturday. The December transfer window creates an opportunity for Arnold to be rostered and settled in for spring practice.

Do you think Auburn coach Hugh Freeze would prefer to navigate spring practice with a backup quarterback, waiting until May to get his transfer quarterback in place? No.

OK, so here’s my bold idea for a potential solution to this transfer dilemma: eliminate the December transfer window, but also eliminate spring practices. Return to a transfer portal period after the season and begin preseason workouts in the summer.

Want to be like the NFL? Fine, but commit to this professional model. NFL teams do not play spring games.

Activities organized by NFL teams begin in May. In contrast, some college teams hold spring practices as early as February, making the December transfer window critical for coaches who need to rebuild their rosters before spring practices.

Abandoning the December transfer period is worth considering, provided it is combined with eliminating spring practices.

As players transfer before the end of the season, coaches also leave

As currently set up, portal access allows other interested programs to contact a player, but it does not strictly prohibit an athlete from participating in playoff games with their current team.

However, a transferring player might find it untenable to juggle preparing for a playoff game while considering transfer options for the following season.

SMU’s playoff-qualified backup quarterback Preston Stone has entered the portal, but he remains with the Mustangs as they prepare to face Penn State in the first round of the CFP. Penn State backup quarterback Beau Pribula has also entered the portal, but he’s not holding up with the Nittany Lions.

“I feel so bad for our kids and kids across the country,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee told reporters. “There’s no other sport that has free agency this season. It’s sad. It’s terrible.”

“(A player) should not have to make that decision” during the season, he added.

Maybe not, but what is the alternative? Start the season at the beginning of August and end it before Christmas? This opens more cans of worms.

Athletes are not the only ones to leave competition before the end of the season. Marshall won the Sun Belt championship, then bowed out of its bowl game following a mass exodus of transfers, in the midst of Marshall’s best season in a decade.

What motivated this? Marshall coach Charles Huff flew to the Southern Mississippi coaching job a day after the Sun Belt championship game after failing to reach an agreement with his former school.

I’m not criticizing Huff. He’s far from the only coach to leave his team before the end of the playoffs.

Most hiring in college football happens in November and December, weeks before the playoffs begin. Would you be surprised if the coach of a playoff team changed positions before the playoffs were over?

So yes, maybe it’s a stupid system, and it’s stupid for everyone – players and coaches – and the academic calendar places time constraints on the transfer period.

No simple solution would solve all problems, and satisfying everyone seems as likely as solving the Riemann Hypothesis, but eliminating the December transfer window combined with the practice of spring dumping would be a step towards stability.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on @btopppmeyer. Subscribe read his entire columns.