Over half of the FBS colleges in Texas elected not to play a traditional spring game as a broken college football calendar and uncertainty about the future cloud the sport’s offseason. Most coaches point to the spring portal window as the main culprit for undermining the value of not only a spring game, but spring practices in general. 

Spring ball is a century-old tradition that allowed colleges to whip their rosters into shape and install schemes ahead of summer break. College football is now a year-long pursuit and players rarely leave campus in the summer. But it’s the revolving roster door that makes coaches apprehensive to invest too much time and energy into the 15 spring practices allowed by the NCAA.

“Under the current structure, spring ball has lost a lot of its value because there’s a portal window during or right after you finish,” SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee said. “You go through a month of practice and you’re not even sure if those same players will be on your team in the fall.” 

At the G5 level, spring ball is now used mostly for evaluation. Teams rarely spend time on situational football like third downs or red zone or exotic pressures on defense. With so much turnover on a year-to-year basis, head coaches like Texas State’s G.J. Kinne values spring ball more for roster construction than game preparation. The coaches don’t want it to disappear completely. They want it to fit the current needs of college athletics. The Bobcats didn’t use all 15 practices and the “spring game” was more of a glorified open practice.

“I still want to have spring ball,” Kinne explained. “I just don’t think you need 15 traditional practices and a spring game. We signed three new quarterbacks in the offseason, so I just wanted to see if they could drop back and throw to an open receiver. We’re not installing our offense or defense for next year. Not like we used to when I was playing. You implement some base schemes and evaluate your roster.” 

Life is easier on the Power Four level, though not perfect. Most of the turnover at places like Texas or Texas A&M are choices. Those rosters aren’t being poached for starters following spring ball. Still, the Longhorns cancelled the traditional Orange-White Game because they played 16 games last year in a season that didn’t end until January 10. 

Texas A&M head coach Mike Elko likes the old version of spring ball and doesn’t plan on changing it in College Station. His roster is mostly set and he does view the 15 practices as a chance to jumpstart preparation for the 2025 season. That’s a luxury some schools don’t have, for sure, but that’s not the Aggies’ main concern. It simply illustrates a growing gap between realities at the G5 and P4 level. In many ways, the two are playing different sports with different rules and needs. 

“I like what it is and I’m not really interested in changing it,” Elko said about spring. “The more opportunities to develop our players, the better that is for us. We’re fortunate here at Texas A&M that we don’t have roster number issues, so we’re holding really competitive practices every day.”

Colorado head coach Deion Sanders and Syracuse head coach Fran Brown made waves this offseason by suggesting a joint practice or spring game scrimmage between the two squads. Some coaches, especially at the G5 level, see it as an opportunity for new streams of revenue as players begin to receive more of the pie. For example, North Texas could get a paycheck from TCU to come practice in Fort Worth for a few days. Maybe even hold some type of joint scrimmage. 

“It would make sense for us to do something like that for our fans and maybe to help raise some money for us,” North Texas head coach Eric Morris said. “Finding unique ways to make a quick buck is important, especially at our level.” 

Others see it as a can of worms that won’t benefit anyone in the long run. 

“If you start playing a spring game against an opponent, all of a sudden you have to game plan for it and prep for it," Elko said. “If it’s a game where they’re keeping score, your fanbase is going to care about it, which means you need to win it. Nobody in college football functions in a world where we’re just going to roll the ball out and go play and not make a big deal of who wins and loses.” 

College football is the only level of the sport that doesn’t involve scrimmages against other teams prior to the season. Middle schools and high schools scrimmage each other. The NFL has preseason games. College programs don’t hit an opponent until the season starts. A lot of the coaches want that to change, they’re just not sure the spring is the best time to do it. Fall camp is a month long and was created back when college athletes went home for the summer. That’s no longer the case. 

“I go back and forth on if I’d want to do a joint practice or controlled scrimmage in the spring or to break up fall camp before the season,” Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire said. “Like so many things, we’re operating on a model that was built for the sport a long time ago. Fall camp is probably too long as it is. Maybe it is the high school coach in me, but I’d love an opportunity to line up against somebody else prior to the start of the season.”