Just one week into the 2025 college football season, the NCAA FB Oversight Committee shared that it had voted in support of a single transfer portal window.
The college transfer portal windows have gotten out of control; that's undeniable. With some players hitting the portal in December to some transferring in May, there is no true "window" as to when an athlete can or cannot transfer nowadays.
However, with the recently proposed change, the transfer portal would be a singular window in the month of January, but the change isn't official quite yet. The NCAA Football Administrative Committee still has to formally adopt the measure.
If that happens, then a 10-day window would most likely be put in place, opening on January 2 of each year (just between the second round and the semifinals of the College Football Playoffs).
The NCAA FB Oversight Committee voted today to support a single transfer portal in January, sources tell @YahooSports, ushering in a significant change.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) September 4, 2025
The Administrative Committee still needs to formally adopt the change later. The 10-day window is expected to open Jan. 2.
Now, this change won't upend the Duke Blue Devils' recruiting efforts. Head coach Manny Diaz still does a lot of recruiting work at the high school level each cycle. However, over the last offseason, Diaz significantly increased his focus on the portal, bringing in nine transfer prospects.
Does Manny Diaz utilize the transfer portal?
Last year, the Blue Devils lost 13 players to the transfer portal, spanning from Dec. 11, 2024, through May 28, 2025. However, Diaz recruited nine prospects from the portal, including four-star quarterback Darian Mensah, three-star safety Caleb Weaver, and more.
Mensah and Weaver both committed to Duke in December of last year, weeks before the proposed singular window would open.
With the change, instead of Diaz having to focus on both the transfer portal and the high school recruiting cycle on a seemingly year-round basis, he would be able to put almost all of that attention on high school prospects for 50 weeks out of the year.
This is a huge change for all of college football, from head coaches to players to recruiting staff and more. For the Blue Devils, it's a great step toward the team continuing to bring in top-25 recruiting classes (from the portal and from high school).