NCAA Rule Change Aims to Stop Transfer Portal Tampering, Penalties Include 6-Game Suspension for HC

The NCAA is cracking down on college programs who attempt to circumvent the transfer portal.

On Wednesday, the NCAA announced that the Division I Cabinet "adopted a proposal that penalizes programs that sign a transfer student-athlete, add a transfer student-athlete to a roster, or allow a transfer student-athlete to participate in athletically related activities before the student-athlete is entered into the NCAA Transfer Portal. Penalties—which are automatically triggered—include a suspension of the respective sport's head coach for 50 percent of a season and a fine of 20 percent of that sport's budget."

The penalties were originally proposed by the Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee but adopted for all sports by the Division I Cabinet.

"I am grateful the DI Cabinet approved the FBS Oversight Committee's recommendation to impose significant penalties on head coaches and programs who circumvent transfer rules, along with immediate accountability," Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea said in a statement. "This is a necessary step to address a critical roster management issue facing our sport and to protect the integrity of football's transfer window."

As Sam Khan Jr. of The Athletic noted, the changes were meant "to stop 'ghost transfers' where athletes withdraw from one school and enroll at another without entering the transfer portal."

As Khan noted, defensive back Xavier Lucas employed such a method when he transferred from Wisconsin to Miami, as did quarterback Jake Retzlaff in going from BYU to Tulane.

The fear was that such "ghost transfers" would increase after the NCAA removed the second transfer window in the spring, limiting the portal to the winter period (this year it ran from Jan. 2-16, though there are exceptions outside of the window for head-coaching changes).

Given the harsh penalties now imposed for such "ghost transfers," it's hard to imagine many schools adding non-portal players, barring legal challenges to the NCAA's new rules.