James Franklin Breaks Silence on Ryan Day’s Transfer Portal Push As NCAA Puts Penn State in Jeopardy

James Franklin has long campaigned for reducing the chaos of multiple portal windows. He wanted college football to pick one period and stick with it. Why? Because he’s tired of the constant looming threat that half his roster could jump ship midseason or even right before spring ball. Last season, Penn State watched its backup QBs hit the portal even while the team was still chasing a playoff spot. A change was needed. You can’t have playoff teams battling it out in the middle of an important run. The NCAA, on its part, is thinking of a change, but even that doesn’t seem to address the key consideration.

In the current system, there are two portal windows. The winter window opens on December 9 and closes on December 28. The spring window opens on April 16 and closes on April 25. The Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee recommended that the winter window be reduced in size and dates adjusted to January 2-January 11. The Division I Administrative Committee will now vote on the proposal before October 1. Does that help with the issue? Not really. This season, the CFP semis go down January 9-10, and the national title game kicks off January 20.

James Franklin thinks the window would be in exactly the wrong spot. The new January setup practically guarantees coaches will be juggling transfer drama right smack in the heart of championship season. And guess what? Buckeyes coach Ryan Day might as well have delivered Franklin’s quotes himself. Day’s take on the NCAA’s single transfer portal window? He’s not a fan.

“No, I don’t think it’s a good idea at all,” Day told reporters. “And the conversations we had with the Big Ten coaches, I think the majority of them agree. I just don’t quite understand how teams that are playing in the playoffs are expected to make the decisions and sign their upcoming players while they’re still getting ready to play games. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

And the other Big Ten coaches, like James Franklin himself, are actually supporting their rival coach’s perspective. “I think it really just comes down to that he feels,” Franklin said during Thursday’s presser. “And I think most of the coaches in the Big 10 feel that you don’t want to be playing a season and dealing with the transfer portal at the same time.”

Franklin watched it play out firsthand last year. His backup QB, Beau Pribula, met with Franklin during the College Football Playoff run. He faced an impossible choice: either help the team finish their chase or leave early for greener transfer pastures now that the window was open. Franklin has made it clear when he spoke for all the Big Ten coaches, “I don’t think anybody thinks it’s a good idea to have it during the season.” And that is exactly Day’s biggest gripe.

The proposed January window opens just one day after the College Football Playoff quarterfinals. It is smack in the middle of the most intense and critical stretch of the college football calendar. This is when teams like Ohio State are dialed in, preparing for some of the biggest games in the sport. And the Buckeyes know this headache firsthand. Last season, Ohio State lost nine scholarship players to the transfer portal during its playoff push. That includes backup quarterback Devin Brown. Fortunately for Day, Brown stayed with the Buckeyes till the end of their championship run despite entering the portal in December 2024.

However, Day isn’t blind to the fact that the NCAA and Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti are doing something about this chaos. “I know the calendar is funky. But I know the Big Ten and Tony Petitti have been working hard, because he doesn’t believe it either,” Day said. “The coaches in the Big Ten, we’ve had a lot of long discussions about that and tried to work through the different windows, but I don’t agree with it being in January.”