College football is an ever-evolving sport. Between the NIL era and the constantly shifting conference alignments, tradition is starting to take a backseat as the major college football programs shift their focus on the transfer portal and expanded College Football Playoff.
One of the traditions that may start to fall by the wayside is the annual spring game. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian has announced that the Longhorns won't be playing a spring game this year.
Sarkisian broke the news on Up & Adams after host Kay Adams asked if she should make plans to come back for the game in April.
.@CoachSark announces that @TexasFootball won't be having a Spring game this year 🚨@heykayadams | #HookEm pic.twitter.com/KzONTjxYiQ
— Up & Adams (@UpAndAdamsShow) February 20, 2025
"A couple reasons why," explained Sarkisian. "Over the last two years we played 30 games. That's a lot for college football. 14 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, that 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 coach of adapting to college football and that's what we're trying to do."
Nebraska's Matt Rhule wanted to steer away from the spring game because it was basically a showcase for other schools to check out his players. Ohio State and USC have also canceled their spring games.
Last year, Arch Manning was the star of the Texas spring game. He then spent the fall backing up Quinn Ewers as Texas made a run to the CFP semifinals. With Ewers gone, fans will have to wait until the fall to catch another glimpse of Manning—and whoever will spend the season backing him up.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Texas Coach Steve Sarkisian Explains Why Longhorns Are Canceling Spring Game.
