The college football season isn’t over yet and won’t be for several weeks, but the sport’s offseason, if you can even call it that, has been in full swing for quite some time — hirings, firings and players announcing they’re returning or leaving or heading to the NFL.
Many players already know where they’re headed, having worked out deals through agents with new schools. Everyone can begin making it official Jan. 2, the official start of college football’s transfer window.
Unlike in previous years, there is just one transfer window. Players will not have the opportunity to change teams later in the spring. The NCAA approved the change to a single window in October, hoping to bring a little more stability to the sport — if such a thing is possible in college football.
MORE: College football transfer portal tracker for Duke, North Carolina and North Carolina State
Although schools are limited to spending $20.5 million to directly pay athletes, the cost to lure and keep any individual player continues to rise, especially for quarterbacks. ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported that the market for top quarterbacks could reach $5 million.
Duke’s Darian Mensah was among the highest-paid quarterbacks this season, at a reported $4 million. Mensah, the ACC leader in passing yards and passing touchdowns in 2025, has said he would return to the Blue Devils for the 2026 season.
There are several high-profile quarterbacks who intend to transfer, including TCU’s Josh Hoover, Nebraska’s Dylan Raiola, Cincinnati’s Brendan Sorsby. NC State’s CJ Bailey could add to the list. High-profile programs like Indiana, Miami and LSU are in the market for quarterback transfers.
Despite the change to a single window, it’s not perfect. The portal is open from Jan. 2 to Jan. 16, while the College Football Playoff is happening. It closes before the national championship game. Players on those two teams can enter the portal from Jan. 20 through Jan. 24.
Players need only to enter the portal during the window. They don’t have to choose their school during that time. However, the school calendar plays a role if players want to participate in spring practice.
Players have been entering the portal – not a physical place, just a NCAA database — since the regular season wrapped up in late November.
More than a dozen North Carolina players, for example, plan to transfer from Bill Belichick’s program, including leading tackler Khmori House, standout defensive end Tyler Thompson and running back Davion Gause.
NC State running back Hollywood Smothers, an All-ACC first-team selection, skipped the team’s bowl victory over Memphis and plans to transfer or enter the NFL Draft.
Coaches signed new recruiting classes in early December without knowing exactly what spots they might need to fill.
“You take your high school class based on who you know is leaving the program, like we’ll do our seniors and things like that,” NC State coach Dave Doeren said in December. “That’s where the portal now has to supplement. You may have more attrition than you expected at a certain position and you didn’t sign as many high school players as you needed.”
Coaches led the push from the old system which had a transfer window in December (one of the busiest months of the calendar for coaches) and another in April after most programs completed spring ball. Some pushed for the single window to be in the spring, and the NCAA initially adopted a 10-day period, before extending it to 15 days.
“Every college coach would tell you that our calendar is just not in sync with the demands of what’s happening in our sport,” Doeren said. “We need to get our arms around that to make our jobs a little bit easier from a planning standpoint.”
The new single window does help with that. Rosters are locked in early in the year.
UNC made heavy use of the post-spring portal in 2025, after the mid-December 2024 hiring of head coach Bill Belichick, and lost several key players as well. Many programs have stopped holding traditional spring games, in part due to concerns that other coaches could scout those games and try to pluck players from their roster.
“The best thing about this year is that on Jan. 17, the portal will close and you’ll be able to build your team, knowing that when you go to spring ball, that is your team,” UNC general manager Michael Lombardi said. “Knowing that when you go through your offseason program, that is your team.”