One of the hottest topics of discussion across the college football landscape in recent months has been the annual tradition of the spring game, which has historically provided fans the opportunity to watch their favorite program in a scrimmage-style setting.

However, here in 2025, numerous schools have announced that they won't be holding spring games, citing such factors as tampering and roster poaching.

Oklahoma got with the trend earlier this week, advertising the implementation of an event called the "Crimson Combine" in lieu of the traditional spring game. Unsurprisingly, the decision was met with decidedly mixed reactions and polarized opinions. Some acknowledged the shift as a necessary precaution in the current era of college football, while some bemoaned the loss of a beloved tradition that served as a precursor to the season ahead.

On Wednesday morning, longtime Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione made his first public comments since the program's announcement of the spring game's cancellation. In a wide-ranging radio interview with KREF-AM morning show hosts Toby Rowland and TJ Perry, Castiglione conceded that he's not pleased with the decision, but reiterated that the program felt compelled to make the move.

“The whole world has changed," he observed. "And I don’t like it either. The world has changed dramatically, and we don’t have to like it, but it’s something different. [It’s] the unregulated free agency style that we’re facing. Whether we have a spring game or not, players can leave. During spring practice, after spring practice — they could leave this summer. Whether there’s a portal or not, players can leave. It’s not healthy, Toby. It’s just a situation that we’re trying to address [in] the best way possible.

“We had the transfer portal for over three years, but they did have some limitations on transferring," Castiglione continued. "Now, there aren’t any rules. It’s a tough spot to be in. We do not have contracts that are enforceable. So we’re trying to manage it with the players that we have. I can’t tell you whether a spring game would open a door to poaching more than what goes on behind the scenes right now, but it’s more about trying to utilize every practice we have and prepare a team that has a lot of new players.”

In response to the angst and dissatisfaction from fans that regularly attend the spring game and look forward to its pageantry, Castiglione maintained that their voices are more than heard. He noted that the program is making a good-faith effort to foster interaction between the team and the fanbase, as opposed to nixing the spring-game festivities outright.

“I’m a hundred percent sympathetic toward them," Castiglione said of the Sooners' many dispirited fans. "This is not a great thing. I’m not at all trying to excuse it, justify it or try to put any lipstick on it. It’s a rotten spot to be in. And I feel for the fans… There are a lot of schools that have cancelled spring games and [are] not doing anything at all. We’ve just said, forget that — we’re going to try to create an entirely different way for our fans to engage with our team. And we haven’t announced all of the details yet. We’ll have more and more details to follow as we get closer to April 12th.

“It’s not going to be a testing type of combine that we would relate it to in the NFL, but there will be a lot of competitive games, fun games. I think you could consider it being more like what we’ve been seeing lately with the NFL Pro Bowl, where there are fun games testing people’s skills, but things they normally don’t do all the time.”

With regard to the future of the spring game and — more broadly — the future of collegiate athletics, Castiglione said that he's doing his best to remain optimistic, but noted that lasting solutions have been elusive to this point.

“The part that I hesitate about is, I haven’t seen a true strategy out there that I believe is going to work in the long run," he admitted. "The [thing] that we’re hoping at the moment is that the work being done in Washington would allow a bipartisan approach to a bill that can help us structure the college sports world going forward, without fear of being sued every time we turn around or [hit with] some type of antitrust violation. That could help; I can’t give you a percentage of chance, when that’s going to happen or if it happens. But that is a big step, and it might allow us to create some type of a collectively bargained solution. Whether athletes become employees or not, that remains to be seen. But there can be some type of approach where the sides are represented and come to a compromised approach that can work for both sides going forward, and get back to building a sustainable model.”

Castiglione, who has been Oklahoma's athletic director since 1998, also observed that there may be even more changes coming — regardless of whether or not the politicians are able to establish a more functional structure. He also dispelled the notion that he alone was responsible for any sort of unilateral decision, revealing that the program's leadership figures arrived at a consensus in electing to move away from the spring game in favor of the Crimson Combine.

“In my mind, I see spring practices changing dramatically in the years to come," he said. "I’m thinking it might be like the pro teams have: OTA’s. We’re going to go to smaller rosters; we have a roster cap at 105, which will be the roster size starting this fall. There’s probably more than half of the SEC schools that have announced they’re not doing [a spring game], and our coach and staff felt like this was the best way forward to utilize the 15 days of practice that we have in the most productive way.

“I’m not happy about it either, but this is the way college football is evolving, whether we like it or not.”

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