One of the most hotly-debated pieces of the college football world in recent years has been the transfer portal.
As it has become a prominent factor for most coaches in building their rosters, it has also hurt several teams, including the Washington Huskies. After Kalen DeBoer left for the Alabama Crimson Tide and Jedd Fisch took over, the Huskies lost 18 scholarship players to the portal, putting the former Arizona head coach in a major bind ahead of his first year in Seattle and Washington’s first year in the Big Ten.
Since the December transfer portal window was already closed, Fisch was only able to pick over the remainder of the players left over in the portal, and anyone from schools who had seen a head coaching change in the last 30 days. That forced Fisch, who wound up taking 28 transfers, to mainly build his team through the traditionally much weaker spring portal period.
However, that isn’t the reason he wants the NCAA to consider making a change to the transfer portal.
“[The Big Ten] is also the best conference academically,” Fisch said during his time at the podium during Big Ten media day. “No conference compares to the research institutions that fills our 18-team conference, and that’s why I think it’s so important that we let the school year be the school year, and let the portal be the portal. After the school year is over.”
Fisch has advocated for one transfer portal window since he arrived at Washington, stating that it would make things much easier on both players and coaches. It still gives players time to enroll in academics instead of worrying about transferring mid-year, since most enter the portal in December, and it gives them ample time to get ingrained with their new team during summer workouts and fall camp.
It’s a fairly reasonable idea from Fisch, as one transfer window after the season would also relieve plenty of stress on coaches who are in the College Football Playoff, since they wouldn’t have to focus on quickly building relationships and recruiting while game-planning and figuring out what they might need to add to their roster moving forward. They also wouldn’t have to worry about losing critical players ahead of a big moment, for example, when Penn State backup quarterback Beau Pribula transferred to Missouri during the playoff last season.
While imminent changes to the portal seem unlikely, Fisch will undoubtedly continue to voice his opinion on the ever-changing world of college football.