The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee on Wednesday recommended that the Division I Cabinet adopt emergency legislation to address schools adding transfer student-athletes to their football roster if the student-athletes did not provide notification of their wish to transfer during football's January window.
Committee members proposed significant penalties for schools that are found to have violated this rule.
If the measure is approved, once an enrolled student-athlete who was not active in the Transfer Portal at the time of transfer participates in any athletically related activity at the next school, the following actions would occur:
- The head coach would be prohibited from all football (recruiting and on-field coaching) and administrative duties (team meetings) for six contests.
- The school would be fined 20% of its football budget.
- The school would be required to reduce the number of roster spots by five for the next season, regardless of the head coach's employment status at the school.
If approved at the Division I Cabinet meeting in April, the legislation would become effective immediately.
"We felt this was appropriate to place an emphasis on this rule with where we are in Division I football," said Mark Alnutt, chair of the oversight committee and director of athletics at Buffalo. "We have a window for student-athletes to notify their school when they would like to enter the Transfer Portal. If there is movement without going through the process as it is legislated, the committee felt there needed to be significant penalties."
Josh Brooks, who heads the committee's calendar subgroup and is the director of athletics at Georgia, added: "Attempts to circumvent the transfer window process is an issue for the sport. We want to let everyone know that this is not going to be allowed, and the committee wants to protect the transfer window that has been established."
Official visits
The Division I FBS Oversight Committee and Division I Football Championship Subdivision Oversight Committee also voted to eliminate the annual limit on official recruiting visits.
For the past two years, a blanket waiver was in place to permit schools to provide an unlimited number of official visits in Division I football.
Eliminating the annual limit on official visits aligns football with other sports and permits athletics departments to provide official visits according to their own budget decisions. The vote is subject to review by the Division I Cabinet on April 14.
