Sen. Tuberville’s ‘Student Athlete Act Of 2026’ Aims To Curtail Portal Chaos, Give Athletes Five Years To Play

The ongoing discussion around college athletics and the enforcement of rules pertaining to athletes using the transfer portal has a new wrinkle. 

Senator Tommy Tuberville is joining the fight, proposing the Student Athlete Act Of 2026 which aims to reel in rules pertaining to how many times an athlete can transfer without having to sit out a season.

"The transfer portal has made it easier than ever for athletes to move from one program to another, and repeated transfers have contributed to a system that often resembles unrestricted free agency rather than amateur competition," according to an announcement from Tuberville about the bill. 

The conversation around college sports has tamped up in recent months, with President Donald Trump earlier this month assembling a group of leaders in the arena to discuss ways to fix the problems. The President is also working to design an executive order pertaining to NIL and other components, like the portal and how to strengthen rules against 3rd party collectives.

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Tuberville's proposal is looking at one of the biggest issues — the movement of athletes between schools. Such movement is creating problems for programs that are trying to find stability, while at the same time struggling with the option players are currently given regarding leaving a program after a single season. 

"Sixty to seventy percent of them (college programs) don't even look at high school athletes, they look at the portal and say ‘How can we win now? How can we bring players in?'. It's going to bring the price down on a lot of these players in which to me, it's ok because they're going to be making money anyway. I'm all for them making money," Senator Tuberville told OutKick's Hot Mic during an appearance on Tuesday.

"But for them to keep selling themselves for $50,000 to $100,000 more, I think it's creating a huge problem."

In this era, creating a bidding-war for athletes has obviously become the go-to move for some player-reps, who are using the portal essentially as a tool to drive up the price. Now, plenty will argue that this is what the NCAA signed up for when they allowed multiple transfers to begin with. 

But, schools are fighting to keep players around, in some instances inserting a very large buyout in their rev-share contracts that will at least provide the previous school with some type of financial cushion if a player decides to leave after one season. 

While this might look beneficial for some, we are now seeing these contract stipulations sometimes just ignored, forcing litigation between the student-athlete and the previous school. 

Student Athlete Act Of 2026 Will Be Interesting Discussion

So, in an effort to curtail the number of times an athlete decides he wants to transfer, Senator Tuberville is proposing a solution. 

The bill provides that a student-athlete has five years of eligibility to play five years of intercollegiate athletics, regardless of injury or other events," the ‘Student Athelte Act’ proposes. "It also preserves the NCAA’s role in managing the transfer portal, while requiring that any athlete who transfers more than once sit out for the academic year in which he or she entered the transfer portal." 

OK, that's going to be a highly-contested part, given that the legislation is hoping to force a student to sit out one season if they transfer for a second time. Obviously, this will lead to further lawsuits pertaining to the rights of an athlete, but it does make sense if you're trying to curtail the number of times an athlete changes uniforms. 

"I've talked to President Trump about it, he knows it and understands it. We can't get into all the antitrust, the agents, we can't do that," Tubervile told Hot Mic. "That's gotta be handled by the NCAA. But one thing we can do is stop this transfer every year, and give these kids the chance to get a degree, and one time transfer if they have a death in the family, circumstances or don't get along with the coaches. 

"But, if you use it, it's over with. But if you use it, you have to sit out a year, though most of them won't do that anyway."

The kicker is that if agreed-upon, is that the student athlete would be signing away any chance at using past legislation against the NCAA if they were to transfer for a second time, and want to play immediately. 

"If you look back at 2025, there were 3,200 football players that got into the transfer portal, 2,300 mens basketball players and 1,500 women's basketball players," Tuberville told OutKick. "This year alone, in 2026, we've had over 10,000 young men get into the transfer portal in college football, that probably will not get a degree when they transfer because once you transfer, it takes forever to get those hours back because most of them don't transfer. 

"So, we're trying to put education back into college sports, common sense."

And where do some of these lawsuits arise from? States that decide to help their student-athletes gain an upperhand over other states that try to gain an advantage of recruiting. 

So, what could Congress try to do to curtail these issues at the state level, while also trying to pass this legislation on the national level, and take away the different rules pertaining to each state?

"Finally, it preempts conflicting state laws to ensure that eligibility and transfer standards are governed by one uniform national set of rules," the legislation says. 

Will it work? That's going to be something both the House will discuss, and then try to garner enough votes to pass. 

Maybe Senator Tuberville could ramp up the discussion with this new legislation. For some, it's a start. For others, the cycle continues.