Bedlam football in the spring? Oklahoma State Coach Mike Gundy suggests scrimmage against Sooners

One of the biggest college football topics in 2025 has been the future of spring football. Several college football programs have canceled their traditional spring games for the 2025 season, citing various reasons such as stadium renovations, player development priorities, and concerns over transfer portal tampering. Notably, 19 Power Four programs have opted out of spring games this year, according to ESPN.

Oklahoma, other power conference schools eliminating or changing spring game

Deion Sanders, head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes, has proposed a significant change to traditional college football spring practices. He advocates adopting an NFL-style approach by allowing teams to practice and scrimmage against other schools during the spring season. The suggestion of joint practices followed by a spring game against another team would help in multiple areas, according to Coach Prime. Syracuse and Colorado have had discussions about a potential joint practice.

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"I would like to style it like the pros. I'd like to go against someone [in practice] for a few days, and then you have the spring game," Coach Prime said during a spring press conference.  "I think the public would be satisfied with that tremendously. I think it's a tremendous idea. I've told those personnel, who should understand that, that it's a tremendous idea."

Gundy thoughts

While speaking to the media on Tuesday afternoon at the first spring practice of the season, Gundy was asked about potential changes to the spring format brought on by the comments from Coach Prime.  

"Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's something that we've talked about. I think it's a great idea. I have kind of forgot about it until it got brought up," said Gundy.

"Somebody had texted me an article or something about that. And when you read it, makes a lot of sense. I mean, honestly, for us, we should do a home-and-home with OU in the spring.  They should come here on the 19th and, I think, Thursdays earlier in the year. We should go down there and play a home and home in the spring against them. Charge 25 bucks a head. They can use it for NIL, we'll use it for NIL. If they don't want to do two in one spring, we can do one here this year, do it there next year, and split the gate. Because we get tired of practicing against each other.

"It's not going to be a live game because, well, I don't know what Coach Venables would say, but I would be concerned with making it live just because of injury. But nobody really has live scrimmages anymore, so you make it a full thud, like we're doing, and practice against them, just like they do in the NFL. We're moving towards the NFL. Why not do that?

“So, I think it would be a great idea. I'd be open to doing it here on the 19th. I asked about it, somebody said theirs is the week before on the 12th. We'll go down there for an hour and a half and practice, and they'll come up here for practice. I'm all for it. We can split the gate for NIL.”

"It makes sense to go down and, like I said, go again, go down there and scrimmage them and a full thud and come up here. You would get a more competitive atmosphere. It'd be good for us. I would like to see our guys compete against them in the spring to see where we're at and do the best we can to stay off the ground. We know that's not going to happen 100 % of the time. They could use it as a scrimmage. We could use it as a scrimmage because by rule we get it and I don't know if you could file a waiver or whatever. Don't know if Coach Venable's be willing to do it. I haven't talked to him about it, but I just thought about it. I think it'd be a great idea. I don't know; what do y'all think? I bet the fans would like it. Give them something to do. Yeah, yeah, go pay 25 bucks, go down and watch OU and OSU practice against each other. Go seven on seven, go inside, do 35, 40 minutes of a team drill, do individual against each other, one on ones."

NCAA bylaws currently prevent college football programs from playing against other teams during the spring practice period. The Cowboys and Sooners ended their Bedlam series last year after Oklahoma moved from the Big 12 to the SEC, halting 112 consecutive years of rivalry matchups.

FROM JULY 2023: Teams discuss Bedlam's end after 2023 season

FROM SEPT. 2022: Bedlam football series to end once Sooners join SEC