College football transfer portal closes today: What you need to know

What happens now as the 2024 college football transfer portal winter window closes

Free agency of a kind has arrived in college football and players have been only too happy to use it as the transfer portal has forever changed the way schools can create and fine-tune their rosters for the season to come. 

The 2024 transfer portal winter window closed officially at midnight on Tuesday, but that doesn't mean the movement of players will dry up right away.

More than 2,100 players entered their names into the transfer portal as of late on the final day, and that number should keep increasing in the days and weeks to come even before the spring window opens up in mid-April.

More players will enter the portal

Most fans think that just because the transfer portal has closed means that players won't continue to transfer. But in reality, undergraduates can still appear in the official portal list for days after the window officially closes.

That midnight deadline refers not to the ability of players to appear in the portal, but rather to submit their names and declare their intention to transfer. Provided a player has turned in his paperwork by that time, he will have met the deadline.

But after that paperwork is submitted, the NCAA compliance team can take up to two days to process the entry and formally add his name to the portal list, meaning the late entrants can appear in the portal after the deadline.

Bowl games play a role

After the NCAA shortened the winter transfer window from 45 days to 30 days, it added an exemption for players who compete in their bowl games, who are given an additional five-day transfer window after playing in the games.

Graduate transfers

As part of the NCAA rules on transfer players, graduates are allowed to enter their names into the portal just about whenever they like. 

With one exception: the NCAA's notification deadline on May 1 for fall and winter sports. Grads must enter their names before that day to be eligible for next season.

How the college football transfer portal works

The NCAA Transfer Portal is a private database that includes the names of student-athletes in every sport at the Division I, II, and III levels. The full list of names is not available to the public.

A player can enter their name into the transfer portal through their school's compliance office.

Once a player gives written notification of their intent to transfer, the office puts the player's name into the database, and they officially become a transfer.

The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player's request and NCAA rules forbid anyone from refusing that request.

The database includes the player's name, contact information, info on whether the player was on scholarship, and if he is a graduate student.

Once a player's name appears in the transfer portal database, other schools are free to contact the player, who can change his mind at any point in the process and withdraw from the transfer portal.

Notably, once a player enters the portal, his school no longer has to honor the athletic scholarship it gave him.

And if that player decides to leave the portal and return to his original school, the school doesn't have to give him another scholarship.

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