Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione is one of the most well-respected names in the industry, and his reputation has been earned over a quarter-century tenure with the Sooners.
This week, Castiglione and the decision-makers surrounding Oklahoma football made a tough decision for the better interest of their program—canceling the scheduled spring game next month.
It’s been a popular decision among the nation’s top football programs this offseason, but it’s hardly been popular among the fan bases eager to get a look at next year’s team.
Folks in Norman aren’t too thrilled about the idea, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s what Castiglione and company had to do.
On Wednesday morning, Castiglione joined Toby Rowland and TJ Perry on KREF-AM—a local radio station renowned for their coverage of the Sooners—and discussed the details of the difficult decision.
“The whole world has changed,” Castiglione said, according to OUInsider. “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. 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.”
Sooner Nation’s vitriol and handwringing are falling on deaf ears, either. Castiglione says that his program is still trying to do its best to include the passionate fanbase this spring, even if it looks completely different from the usual expectations.
“I’m a hundred percent sympathetic toward them,” Castiglione said of OU 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.”
The harsh reality is that college football is changing at a rapid pace, and in order to keep up with the times, Oklahoma is having to adjust accordingly.
“I’m not happy about it either, but this is the way college football is evolving, whether we like it or not.”
