As spring football ramps up throughout the month of March, questions loom as many programs have opted out of playing a spring game in front of fans.
Currently, 19 Power 4 programs have canceled their spring games this year. Some schools have opted instead for a spring showcase or an alumni game. What’s behind this trend? Has the portal played a part? Did the number of games played last season with the new College Football Playoff format make coaches question putting on the event?
College football reporters Heather Dinich, Kyle Bonagura and Max Olson give us insight on what coaches are saying about spring games and why these changes are being made.
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History | Cancellations | Coaches | Portal
Keeping spring games | Alternatives
What is the history of the spring game?
There is not a universally accepted origin story for spring football games. They have existed in some form or fashion dating back to the late 1800s and evolved over the years.
In 1906, Nebraska played a spring game against Doane University for the purpose of testing out new rules.
In 1910, Kansas held an intrasquad spring game “in order to prove that the new rules governing the American game of football have materially lessened the dangers of the game,” according to a report from the Hutchinson Gazette.
By the 1920s, these sorts of games were held all across the county at both the college and high school levels, and various newspapers would erroneously claim multiple spring games to be the first of their kind.
Over the next couple of decades, spring games became part of the college football lexicon and were understood to be integral to the sport’s calendar, mostly signifying the culmination of spring practice and serving as an opportunity to sell tickets.
From a structural standpoint, the games have ranged from a somewhat serious competition meant to mimic a real game toward a glorified practice. Some head coaches have let their assistant coaches draft teams. Others have split up 1s and 2s, or similar variations, to maintain continuity among units. There have been scoring systems designed to allow both offenses and defenses to score points in unique ways. Spring games have never been one-size-fits-all endeavors.
Once spring games became televised regularly, coaches were more reluctant to take them seriously, not wanting to provide opposing teams an easy-access scouting report. The games became less interesting and less valuable as a development tool.
It has gotten to the point where some coaches are so paranoid by the competitive drawbacks that they’ve deemed the games a net negative. — Kyle Bonagura
Why are spring games being canceled?
At the root of this trend is the idea that spring games hurt more than they help.
Why, coaches are wondering, should they invite cameras in to showcase their players and schemes for opposing coaches? If a player performs well — this goes for backups or starters — it may generate interest from other programs who can offer a better role and/or more money. If a play is executed well, it’s something teams can prepare for. There is almost no competitive advantage, and that’s before factoring in the possibility of injury.
This isn’t a new revelation. That’s why these games have been consistently scaled back. They’ve become glorified practices, and in most cases, coaches believe they are less productive than the other spring practices.
An SEC coach said he records every opponent’s televised spring game, and the staff watches them in the summer to observe potential personnel changes with new players, rather than looking for schematic insights, as the games are intentionally kept basic.
Plus, as the season gets longer, there is more of a need for offseason rest and recovery. Injuries, plus the revolving transfer door, impact player availability and continuity. A spring game exasperates those issues. — Bonagura
What are coaches saying?
It truly depends on the coach and his program’s circumstances. At Utah, for example, the “22 Forever Spring Game” in Rice-Eccles Stadium goes beyond football and benefits the 22 Memorial Scholarship, which honors the memories of late teammates Ty Jordan and Aaron Lowe. Missouri isn’t having a spring game because of stadium construction, but coach Eli Drinkwitz said the future of spring games should be based on individual situations.
“It’s an opportunity for you to get recruits on campus and get the feel of what a game day experience is similar to,” Drinkwitz said. “You get to promote your fan base, so by not having that this year, it puts us in a little bit of a bind from not being able to sell that. Especially with recruiting being as sped up as it is. That’s one of the downsides.
“One of the positives is you’re not putting your players at risk for further injury,” he said, “especially when you’re investing in these guys the amounts of money that we are, that’s one of those risk-reward benefits you have to weigh. That to me weighs way more into my mind than tampering or any of that stuff.”
Texas, which is coming off its second straight College Football Playoff appearance and a 16-game season, needs a break, according to coach Steve Sarkisian.
“I think Sark is right on,” Drinkwitz said. “He’s played 30 games in two years. There’s only so many hits each person’s body has.”
Possibly the most outspoken coach has been Nebraska’s Matt Rhule, who said that following last year’s spring game, he “dealt with a lot of people offering our players a lot of opportunities after that.
“The word ‘tampering’ doesn’t exist anymore, it’s just absolute free, open, common market,” he said. “And so, I don’t necessarily want to open up to the outside world. I don’t want these guys all being able to watch our guys and say, ‘Wow, he looks like a pretty good player. Let’s go get him.'”
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney disagreed.
“canceling the spring game ain’t gonna stop tampering,” he said at his spring press conference.
Big 12 champion Arizona State will hold a practice during a fanfest, and coach Kenny Dillingham said it will determine whether a spring game is appropriate on an annual basis. This year, he said he wants to do “what’s best for our team,” which includes more red zone drills, more third downs and more scripted plays. (He also said he will “hold back some schemes” if the team has added anything to the offensive and defensive playbooks “just because we don’t want teams to prepare for them.”)
“We have a veteran team,” he told ESPN, “so I don’t need to see a lot of our guys play under pressure. When you don’t know who a lot of your guys are, playing in a spring game under pressure, you really get to see them in as close to a game environment as you can create.”
Dillingham said he’s not concerned about players being poached because his philosophy is to “support kids leaving” if they don’t want to be there.
“If a kid doesn’t want to be here, I don’t want to trick him to be here,” Dillingham said, “so a little bit different than other places.”
South Carolina coach Shane Beamer, whose Gamecocks will hold their spring game on a Friday night under the lights, said he understands where other coaches who aren’t playing the games are coming from, but that he’s not concerned about opposing staffs trying to lure their players away.
“They don’t need to watch a spring game to figure out who’s on our team if they are trying to tamper with them and get them,” he said. — Heather Dinich
How has the spring game/practice dynamic changed with the portal?
This is Year 3 of the spring transfer window in college football. The NCAA established these notification-of-transfer windows in 2022-23 to bring more order to the offseason transfer process, setting clear start dates and deadlines for underclassmen to make moves.
In 2023, nearly 650 FBS scholarship players transferred during the first spring window between April 15 and April 30. Deion Sanders and Colorado dominated the headlines during that period by dramatically overhauling the Buffaloes’ roster, with 30 scholarship players coming in via the portal and a total of 43 departing the program in April.
A year later, the number of scholarship transfers in the spring window rose to nearly 900. Miami made a big splash with the addition of running back Damien Martinez, defensive end Tyler Baron and several more starters as it chased a College Football Playoff run.
We rarely see starting quarterbacks on the move during this period, but last year’s spring portal window ended up being an important one for teams to shore up their post-spring roster needs. Among all the scholarship players on the move, 220 landed on Power 4 rosters for the 2024 season.
Since the spring window is the last big chance for coaching staffs to improve their rosters, it’s no surprise there’s plenty of tampering that goes on in April as teams attempt to persuade players on other teams to enter the portal. Rhule had to fight to hold on to multiple starters following the Huskers’ spring game, which was broadcast on the Big Ten Network.
“What’s the advantage of showing all my young talent and letting other coaches come in and try to tamper with them?” Rhule said on “The Pat McAfee Show.”
In November and December, coaching staffs worked to re-sign their returning players for 2025 ahead of the first year of the revenue-sharing era. Retention has become more expensive than ever before. They’re hoping that means their most important players are locked in for the upcoming season and won’t look to transfer in April. But these contracts cannot prevent players from leaving, which gives top players and their agents a ton of leverage.
“I don’t want to negotiate a contract with a guy in December and then renegotiate again in April,” Rhule said. “You sign up with us, you should sign up for the year.”
From his perspective, a televised showcase of Nebraska’s roster can end up doing more harm than good these days. It’s relatively easy to replace a departing starter in December when there are thousands of players on the market, especially at a Big Ten program that has money to spend. It’s much more challenging to find quality replacements in April and May, when teams will likely have to overpay for proven talent. — Max Olson
What’s the argument for keeping spring games?
Illinois coach Bret Bielema, who is entering his 17th season as a head coach, said he has always played a spring game because he thought it was the best way to teach the players how to work together.
“I’ve always played the ones against the world,” he said. “I wanted the first group to go against the entire roster and then we would eventually sub guys in as the game went on and that hasn’t really changed.”
While Illinois won’t have a televised spring game this year because of construction, Bielema said his players will go through the same type of format at whatever big scrimmage it has at the end of the spring.
At South Carolina, Beamer said the benefits of playing a spring game in a stadium in front of fans is “more beneficial than the adverse effects of canceling a spring game.”
“We don’t get preseason games in college football,” he said. “I’ve got an opportunity with all of these freshmen — the last game they played in was in high school — and I’ve got an opportunity to let them play a game in front of tens of thousands of people. They get a chance to perform in front of a big crowd as opposed to the first time they’re playing a game in front of a crowd is the first game of the season over in Atlanta against Virginia Tech.”
Swinney said if there were two or three preseason games in the fall, he might have a different approach to spring games.
“But we don’t get that,” he said. “We play LSU. I look at our scrimmage opportunities as an opportunity to expose your guys, teach ’em. I’ve got some guys who need to practice.”
Clemson athletic director Graham Neff said the Tigers’ spring game is like a free eighth home game for the community.
“We don’t bring 80,000, but it’s a huge event and weekend,” Neff said. “Sure, there’s a recruiting aspect to it, there’s community … that’s not to say that we’re always going to do it the way we have. We have to be nimble of how the marketplace is changing and the football calendar is changing and things like that, but the community value of the eighth home game here for Clemson as a spring game is immense, it really is.”
Notre Dame will have a scrimmage instead of a game, though coach Marcus Freeman said he could see the program “potentially going back to that in the future.” And while the on-field product will change slightly (it’s the offense vs. the defense with no quarters as opposed to two drafted teams, but there will still be officials), the goal for fan engagement remains the same.
“Most importantly, it will still be a great opportunity for us to connect with our fans in a fun, engaging environment,” Freeman said. “That is what it is really about for us, a chance to give back to our South Bend community. It presents an opportunity for some of our local fans to attend a game in Notre Dame Stadium for the first time. We do a lot with kids in the area, and it is also our Legacy Weekend, where all of our football alumni are welcomed back to campus. Those connections are really important to us.”
The opportunity to keep fans connected to the teams is also paramount from an administrative view. Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne said the Tide will continue to offer free admission this spring so fans can watch the team, although the program is still determining if it will have a practice, scrimmage or full game.
“We’re so fortunate here at Alabama to have great support from our fans, and a lot of them are able to come on game days and be a part of the experience at Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium, and a lot of our fans don’t and are unable to,” he said. “The spring game has been one where a lot of our fans throughout the state and the Southeast and even throughout the country have come in and given them a chance to experience and be up close to our football program.”
Washington coach Jedd Fisch is in his second season with the Huskies and trying to build a program, and for him, it’s not complicated — spring games are fun.
“I don’t know why people are not doing spring games,” he said. “It’s a marketing tool for the program. We don’t need to worry about selling tickets here, but we’ve got 350 alumni coming back. We’ve got activities throughout the weekend. We make it fun for our students. We want our players to be able to play in a game on the field in front of their families. There’s some players that will never be able to play a game in front of people. It’s a chance for them to do that. It gives our coaches chances to be in different roles. I’ve never not wanted to have a spring game. It’s never even crossed my mind.” — Dinich
What are the alternates to spring games?
Traditionally, spring games have served two main purposes: 1) Help the team prepare for the fall; and 2) market the program to the community.
The second part is harder to solve considering there isn’t another obvious way to sell, in some cases, tens of thousands of tickets to watch the team in another environment. Fan fests work best in conjunction with a game. Come for the game; stay for the autographs.
It will be decisively harder to convince hoards of people to come to campus without a tentpole event. Marketing efforts will have to evolve. Maybe it’s as simple as holding a few open practices in the stadium with meet-and-greets to follow. Maybe it’s coaches or players engaging in more community events to interact with fans.
Nebraska has consistently been among the national leaders in spring game attendance, and in 2018 drew a school-record crowd of 86,818. In lieu of this year’s spring game, the school is hosting the “Husker Games” on April 26, which features 7-on-7 games and skills contests featuring current and former players, a women’s flag football game and an equipment sale of discounted jerseys, helmets and team merchandise.
Oklahoma is taking a similar approach with its “Crimson Combine” on April 12, which will include a skills challenge and combine-style drills, and Texas is moving forward with a fan day that includes autograph and photo opportunities. It’ll be interesting to see if these alternative offerings are embraced by fans and can help make up for some of the revenue lost by canceling spring games.
In years past, the spring games were a way to keep the college football conversation going in what would have ordinarily been a slow time of the year. That dynamic has changed quite a bit in recent years because of the portal. With so much player movement at different points of the offseason, it has naturally generated more to discuss. So from that standpoint, spring games might not be as much of a necessity to ensure college football remains in the public consciousness. — Bonagura, Olson
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