The advent of NIL and the transfer portal brought in major changes in how college football was perceived. Coaches now not only need to be prepared to recruit the players but also make them stay, which sometimes becomes a daunting task. Take, for example, the dire situation Penn State faced last season, when James Franklin lost his crucial backup QB, Beau Pribula. That, too, just before their first-ever playoff game.

Although Pribula was mainly a backup at Penn State and was utilized sporadically, OC Andy Kotelnicki used him as a change-of-pace QB. For instance, in 2024, the Pennsylvania native played 12 games and passed for 200 yards, also rushing for 133 yards. So, losing him at that crucial juncture hurt Penn State, and the game against Notre Dame might have turned out differently with him. Pribula joined the Missouri Tigers just 6 days before Penn State’s SMU game. However, his departure had ripples that were felt in the whole Big 10 and other conferences.

There were discussions about changing the timing of the transfer portal by the Big 10 coaches and eliminating the December window. One of the fiercest proponents of the change was Washington AD Pat Chun. Chun is a member of the House Implementation Committee, which will make recommendations to the Power Conference commissioners about the proposal of a new calendar in college football. Now, Chun sat on the ‘Triple Option’ podcast’s 16th July episode and talked about his reasoning behind the move.

“The last piece of the puzzle is this football calendar that we probably all need to have, that we’re actually having some robust discussions about. I will say that when we met as a conference in the springtime, we contemplated and discussed all the merits of where the portal should be. I think we all came to a consensus that there needs to be one singular portal sometime in the spring,” said Pat Chun. The changes proposed are also tied to the changes that the House v NCAA settlement brought.

For instance, after the approval of the settlement, it would make sense to keep the portal closer to $20.5 million cap reset window in July, and hence April makes sense. That’s exactly what Chun echoed. “This new settlement does put a little bit more focus on what’s called progress toward a degree. So, being eligible to receive revenue share from your athletic department, whether it’s your freshman year, sophomore year, junior year, you have to have enough credits at the end of the year which is which is a current rule anyway,” said Pat Chun.

What Pat Chun and other Big 10 coaches are essentially proposing is a new landscape where coaches wouldn’t have to deal with situations like Penn State dealt with Pribula. One portal window would remain in cohesion with major dates like the academic calendar, which ends in May, and then the roster cap reset date, which resets on July 1st every year. However, despite the proposal, not every head coach in the country remains fully behind the idea.

Pat Chun’s proposal has some SEC opposition

Despite the insistence of coaches of the Big 10 conference, the majority of coaches still want a 10-day portal window in early January (per Yahoo Sports). So, SEC coaches like Kirby Smart are adamant about keeping the January portal window date and insist on keeping two portal windows, one in April and another in January. The reason?

The issue also pertains to the dates of the National Signing Day, which falls in February, and with an April window, the players could exit in just three months. That’s exactly what LSU head coach Brian Kelly echoed. “You are going to put a business together, and 33% of your revenue share (paid players) could be gone in three months? That’s stupid. We are firm on January, and if we have to do a second (portal), we would. But we are firm on January.”

While OSU AD Ross Bjork is supporting the elimination of the January transfer window, and said, “A January portal reeks of one-track mind thinking.” All in all, the matter still needs to go to the NCAA for approval, and without that, no progress can be made. The House Implementation Committee, led by Chun and Bjork, is now expected to recommend their proposals in the coming weeks.