Stadium construction is forcing the Cowboys to forgo a spring game for a second consecutive year, but without them, Cowboy coach Mike Gundy has come to believe there’s a better option.

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STILLWATER — A yellow crane sits where several sections of seats used to be inside Boone Pickens Stadium. A gray tarp covers the field, and scattered around it are massive boxes and long metal beams.

Oklahoma State couldn’t have a spring game this year even if it wanted to.

But Mike Gundy might not ever want another spring game.

“A spring game is basically an All-Pro football game almost,” the Cowboy coach said earlier this week. “Or an NBA All-Star Game.”

In other words, unwatchable.

“So unless you’re gonna play a real game and just say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna go tackle and not worry about injuries,’” Gundy continued, “it’s not really a football game. And it’s hard to watch.”

You’ll hear no argument from me on that.

But the more Gundy talked about the Cowboys going without a spring game for the second consecutive year, the more it sounded like he might be in favor of not having one even when the stadium renovations are complete and the opportunity exists. So I asked him: Might OSU forgo a spring game in the future?

“Right now, I’m leaning towards (it),” Gundy said. 

But as OU and pretty much every other major-college program has their spring games, a question springs to mind: is it in OSU’s best interest to consider doing away with the spring game? Would the program lose something in recruiting or fan support by not having one?

Gundy acknowledges something would be lost — but there might be a fix.

More on that in a moment.

Gundy knows that the “game” part of the spring game is a misnomer. The only way to change that would be for teams to play all-out, tackle-to-the-ground games.

But the injury risk is too high. 

“I can’t get over that,” Gundy said. “I just can’t make myself do it.”

Neither can any other college football coach in his right mind, and the result is a football mish-mash. Scoring systems are altered. Game rules are bent if not broken entirely. 

Coaches, for example, sometimes dictate where the ball is placed and what the down and distance is because they want to see their offense or their defense in certain scenarios. 

“It’s hard for me to watch because the referees don’t know where to mark the ball down,” Gundy said. “I’m blowing the whistle, chasing the guy with the ball, telling him to bring it back here. The crowd’s upset because they want it to be on the 20, he wants it on the 10. The kid says, ‘I wasn’t tackled; he wouldn’t have got me down.’ The defensive guy says, ‘You were down/ I would have tackled you.’ 

“So it’s not really that great in my opinion.”

Over the past year or so, Gundy has realized recruits don’t think it’s all that great either.

Spring games in recent years have become huge recruiting weekends for lots of programs. They bring in a huge swath of recruits, doing special events for the recruits and their families, building everything around the spring game.

OSU is still having big recruiting weekends during the spring — Gundy said the Cowboys have already had two, will have one this weekend, then one more after that — and with the Cowboys getting multiple commitments over the past few weeks, the non-spring-game weekends seem to be effective. 

“They come to practice on Saturday, and they actually enjoy it more than the spring game because they feel the same way I do,” Gundy said. “When they come watch practice, they can see their coaches working with the players. They go to the spring game, and they see a flag football game.

“So it actually works better for us the way we’ve set it up. We can do a lot more things, and it gives us time. They can come to my house. They can use the pool, all that stuff. It actually works better now than it did with a spring game.”

But in recent years, spring games have become as much about promotion as recruiting.

Team development?

Not so much.

ICYMI: A look at how much has changed since a year ago today for #OKState standouts Ollie Gordon and Nick Martin.https://t.co/wu7XYLfg3a

— Jenni Carlson (@JenniCarlson_OK) April 14, 2024

But spring games provide an offseason respite for the college football-deprived. They come about three months after the final game of the previous season and about three and a half months until the start of fall camp. They bridge the gap between the two seasons and give fans a chance to gather on a Saturday afternoon for some football, even if it only slightly resembles what they see in the fall.

Gundy acknowledges that a spring game means OSU misses an opportunity to engage fans.

“So we might have to implement something for the crowd, the fans,” he said.

One of my fellow reporters offered an idea to Gundy: an open practice. In the stadium, but still, a practice where the Cowboys went through their normal routine but had tens of thousands of people watching.

“And we did that one year,” Gundy said of a few years back when the Cowboys were short on offensive linemen. 

“That’s not a bad idea.”

OSU could jazz it up if they wanted. Bring in alums and interview them during the downtimes. Mic up the position coaches so that fans could hear occasionally what they’re telling their players. Put a Go Pro on Gundy or a couple of star players and have that feed on one of the big screens at all times.

The “game” part of spring games is the least important bit. The fans just want to be reminded of football season, so if you give them a chance to come to campus, tailgate, then be in the stadium and maybe get a few autographs when all is said and done, that’d be a good day. And if recruits are more interested in a practice instead of a spring game, a spring finale would scratch that itch, too.

“What’s happened here the last few years is almost like what happened in COVID,” Gundy said. “A lot of stuff in COVID, we’re like, ‘That’s a pretty good idea. I can stay home; I don’t ever have to go to the office. I never have to get out of my PJs.’

“So I think we’ve learned that not having a spring game … it’s certainly more advantageous for us to have a practice.”

Having an open practice might just be the perfect ending to spring football. 

No reason not to give it a try once the construction equipment and the stadium renovations are finished. Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn’t. But surely, it wouldn’t be any worse than a spring game.