(TNS) — Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) head coaches came together in a rare show of unity last week when they unanimously voted in favor of a proposal that would limit the windows available for college football players to enter the transfer portal to just 10 days in January. This proposal comes after years of coaches complaining that the current system of free player movement is broken.

There’s a longer process ahead if the NCAA ever decides to implement this change, but this is at least an attempt to put a lid on what has become a vitally important roster-building tool.

Why do coaches want changes to the transfer portal?

The two biggest reasons why FBS coaches wanted to make this change coincide as the calendar turns from November to December. First, National Signing Day and the opening of the transfer portal back up right into the end of the regular season, all while bowl season is getting underway.

This offseason, the transfer portal opened on Dec. 9, closed on Dec. 28 and reopened for five days for players whose teams’ College Football Playoff runs ended or 30 days if their head coach was fired or took a new job. Then there will be another 10-day window open from April 16-25, during which most teams will have closed spring practices and academic semesters will begin wrapping up at most schools.

So while most players will enter the transfer portal during a span of 20 days in mid-December, coaches have to keep track of player movement through Jan. 25 — five days after the national championship game — before the trickle of transfers comes to a halt. And all the meanwhile, they have to keep in touch with high school recruits, sign those players and, for some, prepare for a bowl game.

Some departing coaches have cited these demands of modern college football recruiting as reasons why they chose to retire or pursue jobs in the NFL, where they’d have a less hectic schedule.

Pitt’s Pat Narduzzi has been transparent about his distaste for the current recruiting calendar, which he says is built to accommodate the opening transfer portal, primarily because it means he can’t pay all the recruits who have given his program a verbal commitment in person and meet their families at home.

“It’s the worst recruiting calendar that’s ever been made,” Narduzzi said, speaking to reporters after an academic eligibility meeting two days before his Panthers played Louisville on the road.

“I’m usually in every kid that we sign’s home. I will not have been in any of these kids’ homes. So I have less information for them just about who these kids are, how they live, you know, the support they have at home.”

He added that because the high school signing day has been moved up, some schools over-recruit their high school classes and have to drop offers to athletes who had committed and intended on signing because transfer candidates came along, eating up roster spots.

There’s a possible positive side effect that coaches hope could come with shrinking the portal window — better participation in bowl games. Because the portal opens before bowl games begin, some awkward postseason personnel situations have arisen. Penn State played a pair of playoff games without its backup quarterback, and Marshall had to turn down an invite to the Independence Bowl because so many of its players entered the portal following a coaching change.

Moving the opening of the portal doesn’t guarantee that players opt into bowl games, but it would make the pursuit of a new school less pressing for players who are looking to move on from their current situation. The idea is that a January window would allow the vast majority of players to finish out their seasons and still have enough time to find a new home before schools begin the spring semester.

What are the next steps to implementing the proposal?

This proposal will now be brought to the NCAA oversight committee — a 20-person group of athletes, administrators and faculty representatives from Division I institutions — which will then decide whether or not to bring the proposal before the Division I Council at meetings later in the year.

The Division I Council then has the unenviable task of making a few judgements. How will this proposal affect competition? How does it affect academic progress for transferring players? And how, if at all, does it really make the transfer process easier for everyone involved? If it finds the proposal acceptable after recommendations from various subcommittees, the Division I Council has the authority to approve the legislation after review from the NCAA’s Board of Directors.

Balancing the academic and athletic demands will be the sticking point for any changes to how the transfer portal operates. College football’s expanded, 12-team playoff now extends well into January and spans two semesters at most institutions. The old rules, as convoluted as they were, allowed flexibility for the swaths of athletes coming from a number of different backgrounds who feel they need to find a new school. So a tighter window would have to account for quirks in scheduling between different teams.

Just because the coaches agree this is the way forward doesn’t mean administrators or student-athletes will. Just how the Division I council navigates making the process more contained, but still accessible and less hectic, remains to be seen.

How would this proposal affect Pitt?

Pitt’s spring semester starts and ends earlier than most other schools. While many students might get as much as a whole month off from classes, winter break for students at Pitt started on Dec. 18 and ended on Jan. 8, which would be right in the middle of the proposed transfer portal window.

The two week-long “add/drop” period, during which Pitt students are free to alter their schedules by integrating new classes or leaving others, gives the university and the football program some leeway to add new transfers even after the semester has already begun, but it comes after a longer process of application and acceptance that comes when a player decides they want to transfer to the University of Pittsburgh.

A later transfer window would, in theory, put Pitt on a stricter timeline because the portal would open officially so close to the start of the spring semester and close nearer to the end of the add/drop period. It’d be a tough, but not impossible line for the Panthers coaches to walk.

Opening the portal officially in January doesn’t mean players can’t separate from their program and announce intentions to transfer beforehand (as, for example, Pitt defensive tackle Nahki Johnson did during the final week of the regular season last year). So coaches could begin doing preliminary research ahead of the official opening of the portal and streamline the process on the back end.

The proposed legislation poses a dramatic change to how the sport at large has handled a growing player empowerment movement that has turned college recruiting into de facto free agency, and Pitt will once again need to be willing to adapt with whatever comes next.