Oklahoma Sooners AD Joe Castiglione opens up about making one of the more tough decisions he's had to make
The Oklahoma Sooners haven't been in the best place the last few months. The offseason really started off poorly when they lost the Armed Forces Bowl Game to Navy, a team that they should be beating regularly. You go into the offseason with that hanging over your head, and the way they lost, too, it's […]
The Oklahoma Sooners haven't been in the best place the last few months. The offseason really started off poorly when they lost the Armed Forces Bowl Game to Navy, a team that they should be beating regularly. You go into the offseason with that hanging over your head, and the way they lost, too, it's just not good. Then, staff members start leaving, and you have to hire new positions. Players start transferring, too.
It was all pretty bad. But, I will say, there have been just as many goods as bad for the Sooners. They got a great offensive coordinator and his quarterback, John Mateer, along with maybe the best GM candidate possible in Jim Nagy. But nothing ever stays good. There is always bad news around the corner.
Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule decided to shut down his spring game, and this has led to a few programs following suit, even the Oklahoma Sooners, who have a pretty big tradition and fill a lot of seats for the spring game. This upset a ton of fans, and even some media, but it had to be done.
“The old world has changed, and I don't like it either," Sooners athletic director Joe Castiglione said on The REF. "We have grown the attendance of spring games. We understand it, but the world has changed dramatically. We don't have to like it, but it's something different. It's hard to explain to everyone. But, this is the forerunner for what's going to happen in spring football. Maybe people have a spring game this year. But in my mind, I see spring practices changing dramatically. I love the spring game. I hate to see it going away. I’m with the fans. It’s just something that we’re having to do to adjust and best position our program.”
This had to be done because of the landscape of college football that we are in today. With the transfer portal, other teams can watch your spring games and check in with spring practices and see certain players do well, then when that next spring transfer portal window opens, they can offer them more money and poach the player. That's not cool, but that's our college football world.
And the Sooners were likely going to end up being a victim of that eventually.