The landscape of college football has undergone some drastic changes over the past few years. With the rise of the transfer portal, NIL deals, and conference realignment, a lot of traditions around the game that many fans love has come to an end. And heading into 2025, two bluebloods of the sport have decided to do away with another longstanding tradition.
For years, spring games have provided an early insight for college football fans around the country into their favorite team’s respective roster.
However, in the past couple of days, two of the most prominent college football programs announced that instead of a spring game open to the public, they will be hosting spring practices behind closed doors.
On Wednesday, Ryan Kartje of the Los Angeles Times reported that the USC Trojans will not be hosting a spring game. Instead, they will reportedly be holding “an event this spring that brings together former players” along with a “fan appreciation event” in the summer.
Spring practices at USC will remain closed to the public.
But in lieu of not having a spring game, a source says, USC is planning to hold an event this spring that brings together former players, as well as a fan appreciation event with the team this summer.
— Ryan Kartje (@Ryan_Kartje) February 19, 2025
On Thursday, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian followed suit, announcing during an appearance on Up & Adams with Kay Adams how the Longhorns will also not be hosting a spring game. In an explanation of this decision, Sarkisian cited the increase in potential games for his team thanks to the new format of the College Football Playoff.
“Should I be making plans to come back since I’m a fan now for the spring game?” Adams asked Sarkisian.
“Spring practice, you want to come to spring practice? We’re not gonna have a spring game,” replied Sarkisian. “A couple reasons why… Over the last two years, we have played 30 games. That’s a lot for college football. 14 two years ago, 16 this year. I just mentioned we have had 25 guys get invited to the NFL Combine in the last two years. We’ve got a lot of young guys on the roster. We have 21 mid-year high school kids that just showed up.
“The development that is needed for these guys to get ready for the fall is a little bit different than it used to be. Our approach is gonna be a little more NFL-driven. Kind of more of an OTA style early on and as we grow more into the scrimmage formats in the second half of spring ball.
“I just don’t know if rolling the ball out and playing the game when we only get 15 practices is best for us to maximize the opportunities that we get. So it’s gonna be a little bit different of an 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 and I think it will be good for our team.”
.@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
As Sarkisian alluded to, the landscape of college football is indeed changing more than ever. They and USC are not alone in opting not to host a spring game in 2025, as Nebraska and Ohio State have already announced that they too are doing away with the tradition.
As for why these teams may be making this decision, the increase in games does loom large as one big potential reason. Another is that coincidentally, the next NCAA Transfer Portal window runs April 16-25, which is traditionally when spring games are held.
So maybe these teams could potentially be focusing more on making some last-minute additions to their roster instead of hosting a spring game.
