Billy Napier weighs tampering concerns vs. hosting spring game: 'It's pick your poison'

College football is ever-evolving and the advent of the NCAA transfer portal, coupled with the introduction of NIL, has forced plenty of changes. Even to spring games.

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule revealed his team is highly unlikely to host a spring game this season, citing concerns over tampering.

Could Billy Napier and the Florida Gators follow suit with the spring game? Napier was asked just that question on Wednesday at a press conference introducing his 2025 signing class, and his answer indicated a mostly business-as-usual approach.

“To each his own. I’m either going to have coaches tampering with my players, or I’m going to have a fanbase that’s pissed off at not having a spring game,” Napier said, via 247Sports Graham Hall. “It’s pick your poison.”

So what are the concerns with hosting a spring game, exactly?

Well, after last year’s spring game, Rhule said some players received offers from other programs to enter the transfer portal during the spring window. Because of that amount of tampering, he wondered if it made sense to play and broadcast a traditional spring scrimmage.

Nebraska’s 2024 spring game aired on Big Ten Network, adding to an audience that included more than 60,000 inside Memorial Stadium. But after the alleged tampering, Rhule said the traditional game is very much in question this year.

“I don’t know that yet,” Rhule said Saturday. “But I’ll be honest with you, I highly doubt it. Fundamentally, I hate to say it like this, it’s really because last year, we were one of the more televised spring games and I dealt with a lot of people offering our players a lot of opportunities after that. To go out and bring in a bunch of players, and then showcase them for all the other schools to watch, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

“The word ‘tampering’ doesn’t exist anymore. It’s just absolute, free, open, common market. I don’t necessarily want to open up to the outside world. I don’t want these guys all being able to watch our guys and say, ‘Wow, he looks like a pretty good player. Let’s go get him.’”

Others have considered tabling spring games for other reasons. Texas is toying with the idea of scrapping the spring game after reaching the College Football Playoff semifinals and playing an extremely long 2024 campaign.

Still, tampering seems to be the chief concern for spring games.

Nebraska, at least, will continue to weigh that as a factor when making its decision.

“I don’t know yet. I don’t know anything. I just thought it was important that we at least started to broach that subject of it not being televised,” Rhule said. “At the same time, I do want to show off our players in some ways. What exactly it’ll be yet, I am not worried about anything other than recruiting right now, both the portal and into the ’26 class. Now, I have to kind of turn my attention to all those things.”

On3’s Nick Schultz also contributed to this report.