As of 2 days ago, the Sooners officially ditched our spring game. Why did we do this, you may ask? Well, as of right now, there have actually been 14 other teams that have also chosen to cancel their game. Nebraska was the first team to cancel their game. Matt Rhule (Nebraska’s head coach) explained exactly why he canceled their spring game. His philosophy was if they have a player that not too many other coaches know about, then the player plays in the spring game and does really good, coaches are going to start to notice. The reason this is now emerging as a problem is NIL. After the spring game, the transfer portal is still open to enter. So, for example, Nebraska hosts their nationally televised spring game and ends up having a running back that’s really good that no one really knew about. Alabama can be like, “hmmm we need a running back!” then throw $300k at the player because they have more money than Nebraska. Not many 18-21-year-old people are going to turn down $300k on top of free school. So essentially, NIL has ruined a lasting tradition for schools across the nation in doing a spring game. As NIL continues to persist, more and more teams will end up dropping their spring games as well. One thing to be optimistic about, though, is instead of doing their spring game, OU is doing a “Crimson Combine” which people are expecting to be somewhat like the Pro Bowl where players play different games and challenges for the fans’ entertainment.