\n The Indiana Hoosiers<\/a>, fresh off eviscerating none other than Alabama at the high holy grounds of the Rose Bowl, pulled up to the John Mellencamp Pavilion around 3:30 in the morning, the business of the 2025 season still very much in front of them.\n <\/p>\n \n One door had not, per the clich\u00e9, closed. Yet, as the Hoosiers flew home, another door had, in fact, opened. The transfer portal, the door to either Alice\u2019s Wonderland or the gates of Hades, depending on your viewpoint, opened at midnight on January 2. And so while his players slept, his fanbase celebrated and a semifinal game loomed, Curt Cignetti went into the office and met with recruits to talk about the next season.\n <\/p>\n \n Meanwhile, in Oxford, Mississippi, an equally giddy and slightly more vindictive fanbase had all of about 30 minutes to celebrate their team\u2019s win. Then the clock struck midnight on New Year\u2019s Day, leaving Ole Miss fans to wonder if their offensive coachmen might turn back into mice. Or, more accurately, in this case, rats.\n <\/p>\n \n Jilted by Lane Kiffin<\/a>, Ole Miss nonetheless beat Georgia in the Sugar Bowl but Pete Golding, the new man in charge, wasn\u2019t quite sure which of his coaches would be coming with him to prep for a semifinal date with Miami<\/a> and who was making the short ride across the bayou to Baton Rouge.\n <\/p>\n \n As it turned out, Joe Cox and George McDonald abandoned ship. The tight ends coach and wide receivers coach joined Kiffin, allowing the Rebels to go on without them.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cDo they want to be here?\u201d Golding said of his former co-workers. \u201cDamn right they do.\u2019\u2019\n <\/p>\n \n While all of this was going on across the country, retro recruits (also known as high school seniors) were saying goodbye to their families, their pals and their proms. Early college enrollment beckoned, even if high school graduation hadn\u2019t yet happened. They needed to get a jump on things to stake their claim on a roster, even if the same coaches who months earlier promised them the moon and the stars were currently recruiting over them by entertaining guys in the portal.\n <\/p>\n \n And in ordinary academic buildings and offices tucked up in the corners of the athletic department, university registrars and academic advisors were setting their hair on fire, trying to figure out how to approve transcripts and shoehorn new students into classes that were already full.\n <\/p>\n \n The college football calendar is a mess. That sentiment is now universal. But rather than merely try to undo what\u2019s been done, perhaps it\u2019s time to figure out what the point of it all is. Not only how college football got into this quagmire, but also if anyone is actually benefiting from it all. Rather than just fix the problem, the sport might want to identify what exactly the problem is.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWhat I\u2019ll say is \u2026 it has made football teams and it\u2019s made coaches and players better at handling chaos,\u2019\u2019 Oregon head coach Dan Lanning said.\n <\/p>\n \n And then he laughed, somewhat ruefully.\n <\/p>\n \n The transfer portal did not start the fire; it only added the accelerant.\n <\/p>\n \n If you untangle the mess that is now college football\u2019s January and try to figure out where it all got sideways, it might be wise to go back to 1991. That\u2019s when Georgia quarterback Eric Zeier decided to enroll in college a semester before graduating from high school. An exemplary student, Zeier took advantage of a dual enrollment program and made the jump from Marietta to Athens.\n <\/p>\n \n It was, however, easy to write Zeier off as an exception, not a norm, until a decade later, Maurice Clarett did the same at Ohio State. Clarett intentionally doubled down on classes in his junior season and took classes in the summer, all with the idea of jumpstarting his college progression.\n <\/p>\n \n When he led the Buckeyes to a national championship in 2003, the idea took root. By 2007, Florida brought nine kids in early and Clemson five more.\n <\/p>\n \n The argument for was simple: Enrolling early offered more time in the weight room and more time to acclimate to the rigors of college ball. Coaches could evaluate their whole team during spring ball, rather than wait to sort out starting rotations in the fall.\n <\/p>\n \n By 2017, the practice became so commonplace that the NCAA switched up the calendar, adding an early December signing day to the traditional February window.\n <\/p>\n \n This year, 32 players will get an early jump on college at USC.\n <\/p>\n \n Does it matter? Sometimes, yes. Trevor Lawrence enrolled at Clemson in January 2018 and started that September. And sometimes no. Arch Manning enrolled at Texas in January 2023. He started his first game this season, two years after he got to Austin.\n <\/p>\n \n Carter Smith arrived at Indiana in January 2022. An athletic offensive lineman who not only starred in the trenches but led his volleyball team to a state semifinal and 20 wins as a junior, he left Olentangy Liberty after his football season and went to Bloomington in January.\n <\/p>\n \n A few months later, his high school volleyball team won the state title.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThat wasn\u2019t the greatest,\u2019\u2019 he says now. But Smith insists he would do it all over again.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt really opened my eyes to how much more of the game I needed to learn,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cIf you decide to come early, that\u2019s a big step in your career. There\u2019s really no downside to it.\u2019\u2019\n <\/p>\n \n Smith wound up redshirting his freshman season.\n <\/p>\n \n Early commitments have never been guaranteed anything \u2013 not roster spots, not playing time \u2013 and getting recruited over is not new. A great player is great only until the next even greater player comes along at his position.\n <\/p>\n \n But the advent of the transfer portal has made the hope for a return investment even flimsier. Given the chance to grow a linebacker over time or plug in an experienced older one right now, coaches are going old every time.\n <\/p>\n \n There are only 105 spots on a college football roster, and little time to waste in a win-now culture. Consequently, while an early enrollment may show a player\u2019s commitment to the program, there is no promise that said commitment will be returned.\n <\/p>\n \n In January 2024, Parker Livingstone, a Texas native who long dreamed of wearing the burnt orange, happily left his high school for Austin. He wound up redshirting as a freshman but became a starter this year for the Longhorns, catching 29 passes from his roommate Arch Manning. Livingstone just transferred to Oklahoma.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cNever in a million years did I think I would be going into the portal looking for a new home,\u2019\u2019 he wrote on his Instagram post. \u201cSome things are out of my control. Such is the reality of the ever-changing landscape of college football.\u2019\u2019\n <\/p>\n \n Two days later, Texas brought Auburn wide receiver Cam Coleman to campus for a visit.\n <\/p>\n \n Oregon started its winter semester on Monday. Indiana and Miami begin the semester on January 12, with Ole Miss commencing January 20. The portal closes on January 16.\n <\/p>\n \n So let\u2019s talk about the other calendar that nobody thinks about: the academic calendar.\n <\/p>\n \n College football players are still, by definition at least, students. To be eligible to compete, they have to be enrolled in classes and making progress toward a degree. Except at most schools, spring classes not only start before the portal begins, but the deadlines to drop or add classes are usually well before January 16.\n <\/p>\n \n A simple question then: how?\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt is,\u2019\u2019 says Kyle Ross, the executive director of NACADA, a not-for-profit that offers networking for academic advisors, \u201ca lift.\u2019\u2019\n <\/p>\n \n In a normal transfer world, one not involving a football player weighing multiple offers as or after the semester has started, an academic advisor will spend a few days reviewing a transcript.\n <\/p>\n \n Sometimes, it\u2019s easy. A state school move to another state school is fairly uncomplicated, with most courses already scrubbed and articulated into the system. A transcript for a student moving from one state to another, or from a select private school to a big state school, might need a little extra time to review.\n <\/p>\n \n It gets even trickier for upperclassmen who are trying to get upper-level coursework to count as credits. It\u2019s not unusual for a faculty member to get involved and review syllabi to make sure the classes stack up to the new school\u2019s standard.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIn the best scenario, we can get it done in 48 hours,\u2019\u2019 Ross says. \u201cBut with what\u2019s being asked with football transfers, it can be as tight as 24 hours or less. People get frustrated because they need information and they need it fast.\u2019\u2019\n <\/p>\n \n Approving transfer credits, though, is only the beginning. Transferring students \u2013 and even football players \u2013 have to have a class into which to transfer. By the time most football players are looking to transfer, regular students have long since crafted their new schedule.\n <\/p>\n![\"Ole](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ap26007643224692.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Georgia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/gettyimages-451253434.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n![\"Indiana](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/gettyimages-2254393370.jpg\")
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![\"LSU](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/gettyimages-2249446695.jpg\")
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