NCAA announces new rules addressing ‘ghost tranfers’ with harsh penalties for coaches, schools
By Andrew Olson
Published:
The NCAA announced new rules to address “ghost transfers.” Coaches and schools will be heavily penalized for playing any athlete who transfers without going through the portal process.
Under the new policy, coaches would be suspended for 50% of the season if they play an athlete who transferred to their program without transferring via the portal process. The school would also face a fine of 20% of the sports budget.
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The rule change was proposed by Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee and has been adopted for all sports in Division I. It is effective immediately and applies to all transfers on or after Feb. 25, 2026.
The new rules prevent any college football players from transferring in the process used by Jake Retzlaff last year. Facing a BYU honor code suspension, Retzlaff joined the Tulane football team in time for the 2025 season. Since his decision was made outside the window for transfer portal entry, Retzlaff manually withdrew from BYU and enrolled at Tulane. Because he was not listed as in the transfer portal, prospective teams and coaches were not allowed to recruit Retzlaff.
Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea provided a quote for the NCAA press release.
“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,” Lea said. “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.”
DI Cabinet adopts new rules to address ‘ghost transfers’ for all sports.https://t.co/wVZWWoGZ7Q
— NCAA News (@NCAA_PR) April 1, 2026
There was a sense of urgency to pass the rule in the spring. There is no spring transfer portal window this year, and there were concerns about players potentially transferring on their own via withdrawal and enrollment, with possible tampering, to play in this fall’s college football season.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
