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Texas will not hold a spring game at the conclusion of this year’s spring practice period.
Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian revealed that decision Thursday morning during an appearance on the Up & Adams Show with Kay Adams. Chip Brown of Horns247 reported several weeks ago that Texas was considering the idea. Sarkisian said the decision boils down to wanting to keep the roster fresh while maximizing developmental opportunities for young players.
“A couple reasons why. Over the last 2 years, we’ve played 30 games and that’s a lot for college football. (Texas played) 14 two years ago, 16 this year. And we’ve had 25 guys get invited to the NFL Combine the last 2 years, so we’ve got a lot of young players on our roster. We’ve got 21 mid-year high school players that just showed up. The development that’s needed for these guys to get ready for the fall is a little bit different than it used to be.
“So, our approach is going to be a little bit more NFL-driven, kind of an OTA-style early on and then as we grow into more of the scrimmage formats in the second half of spring ball, I just don’t know that rolling the ball out, playing the game when we only get 15 practices is the best for us to maximize opportunities that we get.”
Texas joins a growing list of schools that are nixing the traditional spring game. USC, Ohio State, and Nebraska have all already canceled their spring games. Nebraska coach Matt Rhule cited widespread tampering in college football as one of the main reasons why his team wasn’t going to scrimmage.
Longhorns fans will have to wait until the end of August to see rising redshirt sophomore quarterback Arch Manning lead the first-team offense. The favorite for the Heisman Trophy in 2025, Manning and the Longhorns play their first game against Ohio State on the road on Aug. 30. While coaches are notoriously vanilla in spring games, the UT spring game would have given Ohio State at least a few more reps of tape to watch Manning operate the offense.
Instead, the defending champs will wait alongside the rest of us.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
