Coming fresh off a roller-coaster season, the massive debate started to flow around the spring game. A handful of coaches and programs have already given up on the participation trophy for various reasons. Texas and Steve Sarkisian became the latest to join the crowd and made it a point to go against the traditional college football rules and standards in a marked era of transition. But Sarkisian didn’t really back off due to the overexposure fear, in an attempt to avoid tampering and poaching like Matt Rhule did. He is just being the empathetic coach to the young Texas graduates who are clearly worn out by a packed-up schedule.

The Longhorns AD made things even more lucid to those resenting, weighing in on the priorities and Sark’s vision board for the team at this moment.

”Steve’s been very pragmatic on his approach, and I think at the beginning of the year, remember our student-athletes reported in June, right Think about that they reported in June, and as we were looking and contemplating the season, Steve always had in mind,” AD Chris Del Conte explained the evolution of the decision,” ”January 20th, I love how he thinks championship and we started to look at a schedule being built out and more importantly how the depth of our athletic our football program will be played out throughout the year. There were five extra games we played. We played 16 games this year with a potential of 17, at that time just starting to look at a schedule and what it looked like and then wear and tear on your student-athletes.”

But it’s not just to get the breather time to the players. Sarkisian admitted that the latest NIL-driven marketplace demands some change in the development process of the athletes. He is purposefully inclining toward the NFL OTA model while growing into more scrimmage formats. The first half of spring is highly likely to be more like an NFL offseason of workout programs and minicamps, which are typically a lot less hectic on the physical side. So, again, health is at the top of the Longhorns’ updated philosophy.