In what appears to be a trend among high-level college football programs, Texas will not hold a traditional spring game in 2025.
Steve Sarkisian broke the news on Thursday during an interview with NFL Network’s Kay Adams. He said the Longhorns will instead opt for “NFL-style” OTAs, or “organized team activities,” to fill out the NCAA-allotted 15 spring practice sessions.
“A couple reasons why,” Sarkisian said. “Over the last two years we played 30 games. That’s a lot for college football. Fourteen two years ago, 16 this year. And I just mentioned we’ve had 25 guys get invited to the NFL combine the last two years, so we’ve got a lot of young players on our roster. We have 21 mid-year high school kids that just showed up. And so the development that’s needed for these guys to get ready for the fall is a little bit different than it used to be.
“Our approach is going to be a little bit more NFL-driven, kind of more of an OTA style early on and as we grow into more of the scrimmage formats in the second half of spring ball. … I just don’t know if rolling the ball out, playing the game, when we only get 15 practices, is the best for us to maximize the opportunities that we get. So it’s going to be a little bit of a different approach, but I think college football is changing right now. And we need to do a great job as coaches of adapting to college football. And that’s what we’re trying to do."
Time was, the spring football game was a major part of the sport’s fan experience. Alabama famously drew a full house at Bryant-Denny Stadium for Nick Saban’s first A-Day Game in 2007, and ESPN and other networks have televised numerous spring games in recent years.
That seems to be changing, however, as several other major-conference coaches have questioned the wisdom/validity of playing spring games in recent months. Nebraska’s Matt Rhule said he didn’t want to play a spring game because he feared it allowed other programs to watch and evaluate his players in hopes of having them transfer away, while both Ohio State and USC have canceled their spring games.
Still, it appears that most schools aren’t willing to give up the spring game, which brings thousands of fans and their dollars to campus during a time of year they might not otherwise visit. It’s possible many will follow the lead of Ole Miss last year, which turned its “Grove Bowl” into more a fan day, with skills competitions and other fun and games rather than a traditional scrimmage.
Alabama and Auburn have both set their A-Days for April 12, though it’s not yet been announced in either case what format the football game might take.
