SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) College football coaches are pushing for changes to NCAA rules to help stabilize rosters depleted by transfers.
The proposals would lift the yearly cap on how many players a school can sign and create designated windows in which a player must enter the transfer portal and retain immediate eligibility.
Support for the changes appear to be gaining ”momentum.”
Todd Berry, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, said Tuesday after a meeting of the group’s board of directors that the changes would help bring some order to what has become a chaotic time in college football.
The coaches’ proposal would scrap the current cap that limits schools to signing 25 players per year. Those players can be either high school recruits or transfers. The overall scholarship cap of 85 would remain in place.
The problem is, Berry said, a large number of players transferring out can leave rosters well short of 85 scholarship players if only 25 can be signed in a single year.
”We’ve always been real supportive of (the yearly cap) because we felt like that it had some controls to it, but we’re in kind of in an uncontrollable space right now,” Berry said. ”For the health and safety of our athletes, not being able to try to get to an 85 number at the FBS level, that’s hard.”
The proposed transfer windows would require football players to enter the portal from the final Sunday in November until the early signing date in mid-December or from April 15 to May 1.
Berry said both coaches and players would benefit from more certainty.
”When you have an open portal like that, it’s hard for young people sometimes to make great decisions because they don’t know the impacts of their move. They don’t know what their competition is at another school, they don’t know about competition coming into their own…
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