With no spring portal, will schools try to circumvent the rules? The NCAA is voting on harsh penalties soon
Proposed penalties look to prevent a Jake Retzlaff situation, where a player withdraws from a school after the portal window has closed and walks on at new school.
The national office of the NCAA is shown in Indianapolis, Thursday, March 12, 2020. | Michael Conroy, Associated Press This article was first published in the Ute Insiders newslett er . Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Wednesday night.
Coaches across the country rejoiced last fall when the NCAA announced the elimination of the spring transfer portal. Beginning with the 2026 season, there’s now only one transfer portal window. The single window ran from Jan.
2-16, 2026, allowing players to freely move from one program to another. It was an especially busy transfer window for Utah as new head coach Morgan Scalley took over and Kyle Whittingham, who had “stepped down” at Utah in late December, accepted the Michigan job. In total, 26 players transferred away from Utah, including safety Tao Johnson , cornerback Smith Snowden and defensive end John Henry Daley .
Scalley and the Utes also made use of the transfer portal, welcoming in 18 players , including Utah State receiver Braden Pegan, Wyoming defensive tackle Lucas Samsula, San Jose State running back Steve Chavez-Soto and Montana State offensive tackle Cedric Jefferson. With the elimination of the spring transfer portal, players can’t leave just a few months before the season kicks off, and theoretically, the roster that you go into spring ball with will be the same as your roster to open the season. That helps a lot for continuity and chemistry and ensures that a player can’t be picked off by a bigger school with a breakout spring performance.