The NCAA has taken a small step to try to regulate the chaos that has been the transfer portal the last several years.

Through the NCAA Division I Cabinet, emergency blind-transfer legislation was passed on Wednesday which will place some guardrails on the practice of players committing to schools outside of designated portal windows.

While this has been already against the rules, the term “blind transfer” has been used to describe players who unenroll from their current school and enroll at a new university outside of the window where this is allowed.

If coaches are caught accepting blind transfers, the penalties are extremely severe. Penalties include suspension of the program’s head coach for 50 percent of the season, as well as fines of 20 percent of the program’s budget.

“We felt this was appropriate to place an emphasis on this rule with where we are in Division I football,” said Mark Alnutt, FBS oversight committee chair and Buffalo athletic director. “We have a window for student-athletes to notify their school when they would like to enter the transfer portal. If there is movement without going through the process as it is legislated, the committee felt there needed to be significant penalties.”

Players are not required to commit to a school during the portal window, which has now shrunk from two to one after the elimination of the spring window, but they are required to enter and announce their intentions to leave their current school.

With one 15-day window, these new rules could attempt to cut down on the tampering that runs rampant in college football and basketball.

Of course, coaches will just get more creative with getting around these rules, but seeing the NCAA attempt to enforce its own rules and punish for breaking them is a welcome sight to all fans.