In roughly 24 hours, the winter NCAA Transfer Portal window will close for most teams in college football, excluding bowl and College Football Playoff teams like Texas football. The first transfer portal window for the upcoming 2025 offseason closes on Dec. 28 (Saturday).
Texas football players can enter the transfer portal well into January with the extension rules for filing paperwork for the winter window amid the college postseason and Playoff
The Dec. 28 date is the deadline for players to submit paperwork to enter the transfer portal. Per On3, the compliance department at schools still has an additional 48 hours after the paperwork submission deadline to file it with the NCAA for players to officially be in the portal for the winter transfer window.
There is a difference between the first portal entry deadline for the winter transfer window and the deadline date for the teams participating in the postseason. The teams still participating in bowl games and the College Football Playoff, including the Longhorns, have an additional five-day window after their postseason games are played to submit paperwork to enter the transfer portal.
With a couple dozen P4 teams still participating in bowl games and the Playoff as of Dec. 27, the final deadline for players to enter the portal will last well into the month of January.
Another policy consideration that could extend the portal entry deadline for many players is for any head coach firings that results in an additioanl 30-day window for transfers to submit paperwork.
For the Longhorns, the minimum entry time to enter the portal will be from Jan. 2-6. Texas faces the four-seed Arizona State Sun Devils in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta on Jan. 1.
If the Longhorns make it to the semifinals of the College Football Playoff on Jan. 9 and 10, the portal entry deadline window could be extended to Jan. 15 or 16.
The College Football Playoff National Championship Game is on Jan. 20, meaning the latest possible deadline entry window for Longhorns players will be from Jan. 21-26.
There should be a considerable number of players entering the transfer portal in the final 24 hours before the deadline submission for paperwork ends on Dec. 28. The spring window for the transfer portal will be shortened to just 10 days from April 16-25.