College football spring games used to be a thing of beauty. For fans, it was an excuse to get the family out of the house on a nice spring day and see the team up close. For coaches, it was a chance to show progress to their loyal fanbase. And for players, it was a proving ground and a chance to solidify their place on the depth chart.

But as spring games kick off around the country this month, I can’t help but wonder if “traditional spring games” are quickly becoming a dying breed.

Last season, the traditional spring game playbook took a major hit, with prominent programs like Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, and others modifying the look and feel of the games or nixing them altogether. In 2024, Lane Kiffin turned the Ole Miss Grove Bowl into a full-blown spectacle, forgoing normal football for things like 7v7, relay races, and a hot dog-eating contest.

Spring ball itself will, in all likelihood, remain a crucial part of the college football calendar. Despite some coaches, including Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, discussing a more NFL-styled OTA schedule in the spring, the on-field work college football programs put in from March through April still feels necessary.

But with the sprawling college football calendar growing every year, the threat of roster poaching and shadow transfers, and the inevitable risk of injury from full-padded reps, it raises the question of whether spring games, in a traditional sense, are quickly falling by the wayside. 

Last winter, Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule announced the Huskers would likely cancel their spring game due to transfer concerns. 

“It’s just an absolute free open common market,” Rhule said. “I don’t necessarily want to open up the outside world and have people watch our guys and say, ‘He looks like a pretty good player. Let’s go get him.’” 

Rhule later walked back his comments, and the Huskers did, in fact, participate in a publicly-facing spring exhibition.

As recently as 2025, the NCAA had two college football transfer windows—one at the end of the season and one at the conclusion of spring ball. In 2026, the NCAA eliminated the spring transfer portal window in its never-ending quest to fix the college football calendar. In theory, that should reduce post-spring movement. In practice, many around the sport now expect a rise in “shadow transfers,” which I’ll detail in an upcoming newsletter.

Transfers aside, spring games don’t come without their fair share of risks. 

Health is important for every football program in the country. And no matter how you slice it, the risk of injury increases with full-padded, 11-on-11 football. Take the quarterback position as an example. Today, P4 quarterbacks are multi-million dollar assets, and although quarterbacks rarely take live hits in a spring game setting, even the chance of a high-ankle sprain or a quarterback getting his foot stepped on might be a risk some coaches aren’t willing to take. 

Sark’s comments about OTA-style practices make more sense through this lens. OTA-style spring camps would allow college programs to focus more on development and fundamentals, and less on a show for the media and fanbase. (I’m not saying it’s right or that I want things to trend that direction, but I sort of get it from a coach’s perspective.)

In the end, fans are the ones who pay the price for programs moving further away from traditional spring games.

In the age of rapidly rising ticket prices, spring games used to be a lower barrier of entry for middle-class college football fans or newcomers to the sport. It’s insanely expensive for a family of four to see their favorite team in the regular season, not to mention if there’s a playoff run. Spring games made it easy for casuals to see football up close, but it feels like that might soon be a thing of the past.

With “traditional spring games” going away or looking different, we’re moving closer to an NFL-style offseason football calendar. The new path forward might benefit players. It is almost certainly advantageous to coaches. And strangely, perhaps it adds an extra layer of intrigue in the build-up to a new season.

But there’s no denying it, the cost of college football’s new-look spring calendar negatively impacts fans and makes the sport feel less accessible.

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Last week, win totals dropped for every Power 4 team. We did the responsible thing and polled the Verballerhood for it’s initial response. In this episode, and hundreds of votes later, we broke down the totals that the community found most interesting and picked the side of the bet that’d we back now…in mid-March.

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