Spring football looks a little different this time around, doesn’t it?

In just a few short years months, it feels as if the time-honored tradition of spring college football and spring games will soon go by the wayside. Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule is doing away with the traditional Red-White Spring Game due to “tampering” concerns. Other programs like Texas have cited fatigue and a grueling 14+ game schedule, thanks to the revamped College Football Playoff.

Regardless of reason or merit, spring games (or the familiar iteration, anyway) will likely look different in the next few years. That said, it doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t still think about spring football as an important bookmark in the college football calendar.

Spring football is a great time to be a fan. Optimism is in the air. Confidence is flowing. And you can bet your bottom dollar that new freshman coming up is gonna be good…you can just feel it.

One of the other fun parts about spring is that you can write about a team, be completely wrong and almost no one will remember. So without further ado, let’s hand out some Spring Superlatives, starting with the How’s Your Marriage Teams.

Whew buddy, where do we begin with this one? Mike Gundy, the man at the helm of the Oklahoma State football program for the last 21 years, is officially at a crossroads.

Last season, Oklahoma State was a major disappointment after a promising 2023 campaign where the Cowboys touted a flamethrower offense led by behemoth running back Ollie Gordon. In 2023, the Cowboys finished second in the Big 12 and rattled off 10 wins, which inevitably led to some lofty expectations for 2024. But with a depleted offensive line and plenty of misses in other key areas (ahem, defense) the Cowboys flopped in 2024. So badly that things got really weird and contentious this offseason.

The TLDR on the Gundy-Oklahoma State marriage is this:

On a very basic level, when has something like that ever worked out well for both parties? I’m struggling to think of a good example.

On the field, Oklahoma State has a ton of questions. Ollie Gordon is gone. The team is without a trusted quarterback. And the defense was flat-out abysmal last season, so much so that it led to Gundy hiring Todd Grantham as defensive coordinator. Woof.

Gundy is a lot of things, but I don’t take him for an idiot. He knows this team was dog water last season, so he took to the portal to rectify things. The Cowboys took 23 transfers this offseason, but still sit 45th in terms of transfer quality, according to 247 Sports Transfer Portal Rankings.

Translation? Let’s take a lot of guys and pray some of them work out.

Second translation? We are swinging for the fences here because we have no other choice.

Let me be clear: This is not a good place to be in college football. High school recruiting is the lifeblood of any sustainable program. If you do not recruit the high school ranks well, you will inevitably pay the price. Oklahoma State ranks just 59th in high school recruiting for the 2025 cycle. That is simply not going to be good enough.

In a way, the Big 12 conference is a crapshoot and perhaps that will afford Gundy and this program some wiggle room to perform a little better in 2025. But consider me a hard sell on the Gundy-Oklahoma State relationship moving forward.

If we play the schedule game, the Cowboys have a tough outlook for 2025. Oklahoma State has two cupcake non-conference games against UT-Martin and Tulsa, with a trip to Autzen to face Oregon sandwiched in there. Gulp.

The Cowboys will then play home games against the likes of Houston, Baylor, Cincinnati, Kansas State and Iowa State. Is that a 2-3 Big 12 home slate? Not to mention road/neutral site games against Arizona, Texas Tech, Kansas, and UCF. I suppose they do miss BYU and Arizona State, which feels really good…but still.

How’s your marriage, Mike Gundy-Oklahoma State? A divorce feels imminent.

Speaking of the state of Oklahoma…the Sooners and head coach Brent Venables also find themselves on this list heading into 2025.

In three years at Oklahoma, Venables has produced a mixed bag of results:

Where do the Sooners go from here?

Last year, Oklahoma sported a vicious defense, and I thought that side of the ball did a really nice job down the stretch, which was highlighted by the dismantling of Kalen DeBoer’s Alabama offense late in the season. On the flip side of the coin, the offense was a disaster. The Sooners played quarterback roulette, never really hit with either Jackson Arnold or Michael Hawkins and that unit severely struggled on that side of the ball.

Optimism is in the air in Norman, however. Much like Gundy, Venables realized a shakeup needed to happen and acted accordingly. He hired a new GM in former Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy. He went out and got Wizkid OC Ben Arbuckle and dynamite gunslinger John Mateer—both of whom were slam dunks at Washington State in 2024. He’s also decided to take the reins on the defensive playcalling duties. That last part is something to keep an eye on, in my opinion.

The Sooners also spent big in the transfer portal—and finished 16th overall with 15 commitments. Reading between the lines, I think Venables knows this is a crucial season for him and he knows he had to make some swings. I feel a lot better about the swings for OU than I do for Oklahoma State, but I’m still unsure of how it’ll all play out due to the difficult schedule.

Playing the schedule game, the SEC did Oklahoma no favors in 2025. The Sooners will likely start strong with early games against Illinois State, Temple and Kent State, but will face a tough test when Michigan comes to town on September 6. In SEC play, Oklahoma will play road/neutral site games against Texas, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. Yikes! And they’ll get home games against Auburn, Ole Miss, Missouri and LSU.

I suspect Oklahoma will start something like 5-0 and will likely finish with only two or three wins down the stretch. Will that be good enough for Venables to stick around for a Year 4? I can’t wait to find out.

How’s your marriage, Brent Venables-Oklahoma? Things are a bit tenuous but there could be some reason for optimism.

Brian Kelly’s big pot of gumbo appears to be boiling over.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that Brian Kelly has had a really good tenure in Baton Rouge. In 2022 and 2023, the Tigers won 10 games. Last year was a step back, but LSU still managed nine wins. The thing is, though, LSU is not your typical place. Coaches go to LSU to win titles and three years in, Brian Kelly is no closer to doing so.

2023 was a massive disappointment on all accounts, largely because Kelly and the Tigers wasted a dazzling, Heisman-winning campaign from quarterback Jayden Daniels. Daniels was on a Joe Burrow-adjacent tear that year and LSU didn’t do enough around him in terms of roster building or coaching to make a push for a title.

Last season, new quarterback Garrett Nussmeier took the reins of the offense. He looked really good at times, not so much during other stretches. I’m pretty high on Nussmeier, but he has to be more consistent if the Tigers hope to make a push for the SEC and College Football Playoff in 2025.

The offseason has been a bit of a mixed bag for LSU and Kelly. After a long-standing commitment, the No. 1 QB recruit in the 2025 class, Bryce Underwood, flipped his commitment and signed with hometown Michigan. This was obviously a big blow for the program and put a bit of a spotlight on Kelly.

In the transfer portal, however, LSU emptied the coffers and came home with the top-ranked portal class of the cycle. The Tigers secured 16 total commitments. That list includes the likes of former FSU DE Patrick Payton, former OU wide receiver Nic Anderson, former Kentucky receiver Barion Brown and others.

I really like what the Tigers have done in the portal. I get the feeling that LSU wants to be an offense-first team in 2025, which is why they loaded up on linemen and receivers. I also get the feeling that LSU feels pretty confident that with more consistent weapons on the outside, Nussmeier can, in turn, be more consistent in the air. We shall see.

Make no mistake about it, though. There’s a metric ton of pressure on Kelly heading into 2025. Ultimatums are weird in sports, but it certainly feels like anything short of competing for the SEC title and making the College Football Playoff could send Brian Kelly packing next offseason.

Money makes the world go ‘round. It’s also likely the biggest reason head coach Sam Pittman is still the Pitt Boss in Fayetteville.

The TLDR on Pittman’s contract and buyout situation is this:

AKA, as long as his record stays at or above .500, he will receive 75% of his remaining base salary and supplemental compensation, which is a little over $5 million annually.

Last year, Pittman and Arkansas grinded out six wins in the regular season and capped the campaign with a bowl victory over Texas Tech. It was quite a surprising conclusion to the season. Many people (myself included) had Pittman pegged as a potential first coach fired, especially after the Arkansas brass brought in former head coach Bobby Petrino as the program’s new offensive coordinator. There was certainly a fox in the henhouse situation brewing, but it just never materialized.

Looking forward to 2025, I’m really curious to see where this goes. I suppose Petrino is still lurking as a coach-in-waiting type situation. I’m just feeling a little less confident that we’ll see that come to fruition.

The 2025 season will surely be another difficult one for Pittman and the Razorbacks. If you play the schedule game, Arkansas has a relatively easy start to the non-con slate with games against Alabama A&M and Arkansas State…but also has games against Memphis and Notre Dame. What the actual hell? Why would Arkansas sign up for that?

In SEC play, the Razorbacks have road games against Ole Miss, Tennessee, LSU and Texas and home games against Texas A&M, Auburn, Mississippi State and Missouri. I’m not sure any of those SEC games are slam-dunk victories.

I suspect Pittman will still be pretty high up on the odds board for First Coach Fired in 2025.

This just in, folks. The Dairy Raid has officially gone sour.

Since taking over before the 2023 campaign, things have simply not clicked for Luke Fickell and Wisconsin. The Fickell hire was praised at the time, and rightfully so. He had just taken an upstart Cincinnati team to the College Football Playoff and was widely regarded as a pristine program builder. He appeared to be a fantastic fit in Madison. So why have things gone so wrong?

Rarely is there a cut-and-dry reason why a coach and a program don’t work out. In my opinion, it’s often a combination of things. For Fickell and Wisconsin, I have a few theories on why he and the Badgers have gotten off to such a rough start.

So where do Fickell and the Badgers go from here?

For starters, Fickell moved on from Phil Longo and replaced him with former Kansas assistant Jeff Grimes. Grimes has an impressive pedigree of building offenses at both BYU and Baylor, and was a Broyles Award finalist in back-to-back seasons in 2021 and 2022. He’s also well known for being an offensive line-focused coach, so I suspect Wisconsin will go back to its roots a bit and attempt to establish a good run game and offensive line unit.

Billy Edwards, a transfer quarterback from Maryland, is expected to be the starter moving forward. This will be the third one-year transfer quarterback starter in the three years of Luke Fickell’s tenure at Wisconsin. I’m curious to see if Grimes and company can do a little something with Edwards. Let’s file this one away for later.

Playing the schedule game, things are looking mighty difficult for the Badgers in Year 3 under Fickell. Wisconsin’s non-conference slate features games against Miami Ohio (not a pushover), Middle Tennessee State and a trip to Tuscaloosa to face Kalen DeBoer’s Alabama team. In Big 10 play, the Badgers play Ohio State, Oregon, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. Big gulp!

Despite receiving an eyebrow-raising one-year extension in the offseason, Fickell desperately needs to turn things around and quickly.

How’s your marriage, Luke Fickell-Wisconsin? A once-promising love has started to sour.

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