LSU Football Spring Game Update: The Format Revealed for the Annual Event

Brian Kelly and the LSU Tigers will hold an open practice on April 12 for fans to attend in Tiger Stadium rather than a formal Spring Game in 2025.

The program will hold an autograph session following the practice with fans to attend in Death Valley.

Kelly recently revealed the program would likely take this approach with the decision formally being revealed on Friday afternoon.

“I don't know if it's going to be in a spring game format, but there's going to be action,” Kelly told The Advocate. “I just don't know how we're going to put it together at this point.”

“I think that there's more of, ‘Why don't we just keep our business a little bit more closely guarded than being so public about it, especially with the ability to transfer so easily?’” Kelly added. “I think that there's much more of a sense of that.”

LSU's shot-caller also dove into making Spring Camp more like the NFL's OTAs:

What About the NFL "OTA-Style" Approach?

“I think we're getting closer to maybe an NFL model in terms of what makes sense,” Kelly said. “I think it's always been on the academic model, and I think we might be getting closer to what works best for the student-athlete outside of academics and much more on portals and revenue sharing and preparation for the season.”

Multiple Power Four Schools Following Suit

Nebraska head coach became one of the first Power Four decision-makers to openly make a decision regarding a Spring Game roughly one month ago.

"The word 'tampering' doesn't exist anymore," Rhule said. "It's just an absolute free open common market. I don't necessarily want to open up to the outside world and have people watch our guys and say, 'He looks like a pretty good player. Let's go get him.'"

"I dealt with a lot of people offering our players a lot of opportunities after that," Rhule added. "To go out and bring in a bunch of new players and showcase them for all the other schools to watch doesn't make a lot of sense to me."

It's a new era of college football with bidding wars and open check books luring players elsewhere and Rhule became the first to openly state that, but other coaches have followed suit.

Texas Longhorns Cancel Spring Game

Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian publicly stated that the Texas program will not be holding a Spring Game this year.

“Over the last two years we played 30 games. That’s a lot for college football: 14 two years ago, 16 this year,” Sarkisian told Kay Adams in an appearance on “Up and Adams.”

“And I just mentioned we’ve had 25 guys get invited to the NFL combine the last two years, so we’ve got a lot of young players on our roster. We have 21 mid-year high school kids that just showed up. And so the development that’s needed for these guys to get ready for the fall is a little bit different than it used to be.”

Instead, the Texas Longhorns will take more of an "NFL approach" towards Spring Camp in an OTA style, which Kelly believes is a good decision.

“Our approach is going to be a little bit more NFL driven. Kind of more of an OTA style early on and as we grow into more of the scrimmage formats in the second half of spring ball, that I just don’t know if rolling the ball out, playing the game, when we only get 15 practices is the best for us to maximize the opportunities that we get,” Sarkisian said.

“So it’s going to be a little bit of a different approach, but I think college football is changing right now. And we need to do a great job as coach of adapting to college football and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

USC Trojans Cancel Spring Game

Lincoln Riley and Co. have also chosen to bypass a Spring Game at the conclusion of Spring Camp.

"The biggest purpose that a spring game actually serves now is a fan engagement tool, and we just we just think we can engage fans in a better way," ESPN wrote.

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