AUSTIN (KXAN) — Many college football programs aren’t having a traditional spring game this season, and Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule made headlines after he decided to scrap it due to potential tampering.
Rhule said after the Cornhuskers’ spring game last season that some of his players were offered NIL money to enter the transfer portal. He doesn’t want that happening again, so it was an easy decision for him to make. Since then, several other power conference programs have followed suit by not having a game, Texas included.
The Longhorns will have a “fan appreciation day” April 26 that coincides with the last day of spring practices, which is traditionally when the spring game would be. Fans will still have opportunities to interact with the team and do all the activities surrounding the game that typically happen. The biggest difference, obviously, is there won’t be a game for fans to get a peek at what the team might look like when games start the count.
Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian said potential tampering has nothing to do with why he decided to forego a spring game, contrary to what the public may believe. He explained at a press conference Monday:
“I’ve got 27 new faces on my roster that I need to take time to develop,” he said. “That development starts at the beginning of spring ball where we really build a foundation and understanding the whys of what we do. The challenge for us as a coaching staff is to grow quickly. We have a talented football team, but we have some youth and inexperience.”
The spring transfer window runs from April 16-23, so even if a Longhorns player went off and had a huge spring game, a team wouldn’t have time to put together an enticing offer to get them in the portal since it closes the day after spring practices. Sarkisian also said that he hopes the culture of the program would be good enough to keep guys around rather than chase a bag of money from another school.
Sarkisian also noted that the season is much longer now with the expanded College Football Playoff, and if things go as he wants them to go, the Longhorns could potentially play 16-17 games every year. Adding another game into the mix, albeit in the spring, creates another chance for wear-and-tear and injuries that could hamper fall camp and the beginning of the season.
Of the 27 players new to the program this spring, 22 are midyear freshman enrollees, something Sarkisian has put a premium on during his tenure. He loves having freshmen get to campus a semester early to integrate them into the program so they get a feel for what’s expected of them. It makes sense, especially if some of those freshmen contribute significantly as Colin Simmons and Ryan Wingo did last season.
“These 22 incoming guys and the guys that a year ago who were maybe at the developmental stage of their careers will be asked to do more,” Sarkisian said. “I like the leadership we have coming back, but everybody will have to take the next step in our program.”
Sarkisian has talked about moving to an NFL-type model for spring practices, more commonly known as organized team activities (OTAs), and he described his vision of that when it applies to the college level. He said the main difference will be that instead of having practices concurrently on two separate fields, they’ll all come together on one field.
“We’ve got new faces as coaches and on the roster, and we need to be in accord to work that way,” he said. “Maybe minimizing some of the team reps, especially for our older players, and really getting some of the new faces involved. It’ll give me the opportunity to evaluate all the players who are there.”
He said there will be more “teaching” in practice with “extended individual periods” to work on fundamentals and techniques. He said team periods will still be part of spring practices, just not as much.
“We’ll still be competitive and have a couple of scrimmages throughout the spring; they’ll just be a little more controlled,” he said. “I feel like it’s really important that every day we take the field we’re teaching, and then we have those scrimmage portions. It’s a little shift philosophically.”
