The first year of the NCAA's new single transfer portal window for football brought plenty of drama and also loads of complaints about the new-look college football calendar. 

With spring practices set to begin soon, the NCAA is trying to get ahead of teams potentially circumventing the portal by bringing in additional players to their roster. With the removal of the spring transfer portal window, there is concern from the NCAA that schools could try to add athletes who did not put their name in the portal by simply having them transfer schools as any student would -- withdrawing from their current school and then enrolling at the new school outside of the portal window. 

To prevent that, the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee issued three recommendations to the Division I Cabinet for punishments that they hope would be severe enough to curtail such behavior. 

If the measure is approved, once an enrolled student-athlete who was not active in the Transfer Portal at the time of transfer participates in any athletically related activity at the next school, the following actions would occur: 

• The head coach would be prohibited from all football (recruiting and on-field coaching) and administrative duties (team meetings) through the sixth contest of the season.
• The school would be fined 20% of its football budget. 
• The school would be required to reduce the number of roster spots by five for the next season, regardless of the head coach's employment status at the school. 

If all of those suggestions are adopted, they would be among the strongest penalties the NCAA has ever handed down for a violation -- beyond the actual death penalty. A full six-game suspension for the head coach, a substantial fine from the program's football budget and a reduction in roster spots are far more than just a slap on the wrist. 

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Given what we've seen in college sports of late, it seems like a guarantee that the first time these penalties, if adopted, were handed down, lawyers would get involved and the NCAA would find itself in another high-stakes court case over its jurisdiction to prevent such transfers. The key element in the NCAA's favor in that regard is that these penalties don't try to prevent the transfer itself, just the athlete's ability to play for their new school's football team. 

We'll find out in due time whether the Division I Cabinet accepts this proposal in full or if it is revised. And then it will be up to the coaches and schools to decide whether they want to be the ones to test the legitimacy of this new policy in the court system.