Tuscaloosa mayor says Alabama football should ditch future spring games, cites staffing concerns
College football spring games are quickly becoming a thing of the past, as more than 25 power conference programs ditched their annual scrimmages this offseason amid growing concerns over transfer portal tampering, player workloads and other factors. Alabama held its A-Day game in 2025 but ditched its standard format in favor of positional drills and controlled situations, and months after the event, Tuscaloosa mayor Walt Maddox called for the spring game's cancellation altogether in the years to come.
Maddox cited security concerns and the logistical demands the spring game place on the city as his reasoning for opposing future A-Day festivities.
"From the city standpoint, I can't believe it. Twenty years ago, if you would have asked me, 'Would you want to have A-Day?' I'd say, 'Yes,'" Maddox said to The Tuscaloosa News. "Today, I would say, with all the things that come now surrounding it, I think it's better for us not to have A-Day and focus on the UA-generated events that don't require so much security personnel and other logistical support."
Staffing the spring game and the events that coincide with it is a strain on Tuscaloosa that may not be worth the investment and effort if attendance remains down. Only an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Crimson Tide fans turned out for A-Day this spring. That was a decrease of approximately 60,000 fans from the 2024 event.
Tuscaloosa authorities responded to reports of gunfire on The Strip -- a commercial area near the Alabama campus -- hours after this spring's A-Day festivities and shut down the popular neighborhood during their investigation, per The Tuscaloosa News. Overcrowding and safety concerns riddled the area during past spring games, too.
"It'll be interesting to see the evolution of A-Day," Maddox said. "I don't know any information, but I don't think A-Day will ever exist again, at least over the next 10 to 20 years, the way it has in the past."
Not every college football program axed the traditional spring game format this year, but countless teams joined the trend after Nebraska coach Matt Rhule sounded the alarms over post-scrimmage tampering. He said the quiet part out loud about the realities of the spring transfer portal window, revealing that many of his players in 2024 received NIL offers from other schools after strong performances. The Cornhuskers held a fan event instead of opening their doors for an open scrimmage.
Other high-profile teams to cancel their spring games altogether included Florida State, USC, LSU and Texas. Others moved away from televised events in an attempt to keep as many eyes off their players as possible. Michigan broadcasted its spring game but did so on tape delay the following weekend after the spring transfer portal window's closure.
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