Why Did Nebraska Change The Spring Game Format (Again)?

On this week's Saturday Morning Coffee Show, Jack and Josh discuss the abrupt change in Nebraska's approach to their 2025 "spring game" and try to figure out its future.

Mar 1, 2025; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA; Nebraska Cornhuskers athletic director Troy Dannen and football coach Matt Rhule and 1890's Matt Davison meet before the game between the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Minnesota Golden Gophers during the first half at Pinnacle Bank Arena. / Steven Branscombe-Imagn Images

On this week's Saturday Morning Coffee Show, Jack Mitchell and Josh Peterson took one final look at the Husker Games and tried to figure out why Nebraska changed the format of things so close to Saturday, April 26.

Below is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.

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Josh: What do you think of the sudden change in how they are approaching today that they told us about a month ago?

Jack: Because it feels like they went all in on Rhule being able to say, “hey do whatever you need to do to win, don't worry about traditions or the fans or just whatever you think is best – whatever you think is most likely to lead to the most wins – do that with no other calculations.” It feels like he was told that.

Mike’l Severe made a really good sort of case for that having happened when he was hosting with John when I was on last Friday. And he actually kind of made that case that he thinks Rhule was told that at some point. And also, when Mike’l says things like that, he usually has some level of insight into them. And I thought he made a good case for it.

Assuming that's true though, it raises the question: Why did they shift here ten days ago and say, “well, actually, we are going to do this.” Why did they just think of it then? Certainly, could have been something you thought about a while back. Did they think now it won't be televised?

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Josh: Was it that and did they also realize, “oh hey this is after the portal closes” right? Like, the portal is done now. I think it was done after yesterday.

Jack: That was always the case. It was scheduled on this day forever.

Josh: Did they maybe finally look at the calendar and say, “oh hey!”

Jack: I legit wondered about that. I was so confused about that reasoning the entire time because I said, I don't think that lines up, right? They can't get out of it. If they're out, they're out. They can go somewhere, but if they're out, they're out now.

Josh: Correct. My thought has always been I don't really buy the reasoning. I just don't think that he wants to do a spring game anymore. In this case, I think a lot of schools are just like, I don't want to do this. I think people have been wanting to cancel the for years. And then he finally just had a chance to do it.

Jack: It's because you kind of have a routine. Practice is practice, right? You have a routine that you go through every time. It’s like you're running right workouts. And I'm sure you have a weekly routine and you have a schedule and you've got all of that. And then if all of sudden, you know, one of your days [has] some kind of  like some kind of a fun competition run that you're not be able to go the pace that you go, right? Or you're not able to go at the time that you normally go. You're probably not as excited about it when you're actually preparing for something.

Josh: Yeah, I think that's a solid comp. Yeah, for sure. And so maybe that's what it is. [Subscriber] DZ says “It's too much of a hassle for the coaches.” You know, where it's just something that they only do it because they have been doing it, right? It’s because it's been around in college football for so many years and at some point, they were going to rip the Band-Aid off and now they finally have.

Jack: And by the way, I'm one of the people who critiqued him getting rid of it.

April 16, 2011; Lincoln, NE, USA; Nebraska Cornhuskers Red team kicker Brett Maher (96) celebrates his game-winning field goal with Tim Beck (center) and Marcel Jones (78) against the White team during the second half at Memorial Stadium. Red team won 32-29. / Bruce Thorson-Imagn Images

Josh: And I didn’t! We were on opposite ends.

Jack: But I can I can see it. If you're strictly going about what's the best for you and wins, I can see how not having it would be there. It just seems like a pain in the ass. Seems like more of a compelling reason not to do it than people are gonna see film of our guys.

Can you imagine a scenario where like, “oh, we've now got this spring game film and this changes everything in our level of interest in, you know, the fourth-string wide receiver who's got no game film,” I guess.

Josh: What changes is your depth in your room is different than what you thought it was a month ago because the player leaves or gets injured. That's what changes. It's not,” man, we watched Nebraska's spring game.” It's no, we need to adapt and adjust our room and we're just going to go after a player because we probably saw something that he did the year before.

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I've never bought that. But now Jack, there's a part of me that wonders, are they already going to walk this back going into next year? And will things return to a bit more normalcy with a spring game? Or, you know, there's certainly been a lot of talk and chatter about scrimmaging other teams. Matt Rhule said he'd be open to it if that's allowed.

Jack: I hope that's where it goes.

Josh: Is Nebraska playing North Dakota State next year or Ohio or something like that next spring and getting back into doing some sort of an actual game versus whatever the hell today is going to bring?

Jack: I would hope so.

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Watch the entire clip below:

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