INDIANAPOLIS — Changes to the college football calendar — and transfer policy — may be on the way.

During meetings this week here, the NCAA Football Oversight Committee coalesced around several concepts related to the calendar and transfers, including a proposal to impose stiff penalties on schools that accept transfers outside of the portal window. Those penalties include a multi-million-dollar fine, multi-game suspensions for head coaches and the loss of roster spots.

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Multiple sources with knowledge of the concepts spoke to Yahoo Sports under condition of anonymity.

The committee relayed some of those proposed penalties later on Wednesday, including prohibiting the head coach from all football (recruiting and on-field coaching) and administrative duties through six games; a fine of 20% of a school’s football budget; and requiring a school to reduce the number of roster spots by five for the next season.

Sources told Yahoo Sports that the committee also took steps toward potential changes to the calendar, including (1) keeping the transfer portal window in January, (2) giving coaches flexibility to move some spring practices to the summer and (3) allowing schools to open the season in Week Zero starting in 2027.

The Oversight Committee — led by Buffalo athletic director Mark Alnutt and Georgia athletic director Josh Brooks — spent the last two days meeting in Indianapolis over the calendar and transfer situation. All of these concepts are only potential recommendations that now enter a socialization and review process among member schools. The recommendations — once formalized this spring — must be approved by the DI cabinet.

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The most significant of the concepts — penalties levied on a school and head coach for accepting a transfer outside of the portal window — stands to limit any movement this spring and could spark legal challenges from players and/or schools this spring and summer who wish to switch schools or who recruit a player to their school. The NCAA moved from two portals — December and April — to a single January portal this year.

The penalties may serve as deterrents for schools that wish to enhance their rosters with players from other schools after spring practice by partaking in what is described as “blind transferring” — when a player unenrolls at one school and enrolls at another outside of the portal window. The 15-day portal window in January is meant to be the only route in which players can communicate with coaches from another school without university staff members violating the NCAA’s tampering bylaws.

Some of the potential calendar changes were expected, as detailed in a January story on Yahoo Sports. The Oversight Committee, debating on moving the portal to the spring, settled on a potential recommendation to keep the portal in January, specifically as a way for coaches to establish and stabilize their rosters before spring.

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The concept related to changes around spring practice is a long-discussed move, at first proposed by the American Football Coaches Association. In that proposal, coaches would receive an additional six contactless OTA-style practices, likely to be held in May and June, to go with their 15 spring practices. In one version of the proposal, coaches may have flexibility to spread the 21 total practices over two five-week periods in spring (February-April) and summer (late May-June).

The change to Week Zero has, as well, been an oft-discussed concept. For now, the NCAA must grant a waiver for schools to play on Week Zero (excluding an automatic carve-out for those playing at Hawaii). The recommendation would eliminate that waiver process, permitting all schools to begin their season a week before Labor Day weekend, the traditional start of the college football calendar.

This would provide more consistency with bye weeks during the season. Shifting the start of the season to Week Zero assures the sport two bye weeks each year — 14 playing weeks for 12 regular season games.