I just don’t think that the timing of the portal window(s) or how long they are open matter. Until the underlying problem of neither school nor player having any binding contractual commitment to each other gets fixed, you could have a one day a year window on June 1 or a 6 month window from April to the end of September and you will see roughly the same amount of kids put their names in every year.
Coaches still need to have the same conversations with all of their players to gauge whether they will leave in January as they would for December. It would be coaching malpractice not to.
Kids don’t just magically look at the calendar in late November and decide to transfer. Those decisions are constantly being weighed based on playing time, payments, whether they just broke up with their girlfriend, if a coach called them out in practice.,, And any kid who has made up his mind to transfer isn’t going to risk a future payday to play in a bowl game. At least not any more than they are willing to now.
The Letter of Intent each player signed used to bind them to the schools. That’s what needs to be replaced. And it needs to have equal consideration for both player and school.
.
