At spring games across the country this April, college quarterbacks have lofted long passes to a wide receiver who gets behind the defense. The pass is caught, the touchdown is scored and the cheerleaders on the sideline do their thing.
The fans in the stands give a cheer, then the thought crosses their mind: Nice play, but what’s wrong with our defense?
Reactions like that are inherent in scrimmages, and that’s OK. But what if these plays were executed against an actual opponent, an opponent who was trying its best to out-scheme you and out-tough you and outscore you? This would be more fun, no?
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New Auburn coach Hugh Freeze brought up the possibility of spring games being held against an in-state Group of Five or FCS team. After 14 practices, why not wrap things up with a game against Troy or UAB or Jacksonville State? Sell some seats, give the money to charity and give the players and coaches a different edge and feel than a 15th practice/scrimmage between teammates?
Hugh Freeze on his spring game proposal @abc3340
— Chris McCulley (@ChrisMcCulleyTV) April 3, 2023
"Let Alabama play Troy and we play UAB or vice versa" pic.twitter.com/tl7lx57qZ1
Alabama’s Nick Saban was asked about the possibility, and he stated if money could be made for charity, he was for it. UAB’s Trent Dilfer was all in on the concept. Troy’s Jon Sumrall said he would have no problem playing Auburn or Alabama in a spring scrimmage.
To this point, the NCAA has said no. It is time for that to change.
Pretty much every party involved would have no problem with a spring-ending “game.” Let us count the ways.
SPRING QB BATTLES: Notre Dame | Alabama
Coaches
As we already saw in the state of Alabama, coaches would be in favor of seeing a different level of competition to wrap up spring drills. Whatever form it takes, which presumably would be agreed upon by the coaches (no contact on QB, running time, coaches on/off the field), a scrimmage or game against an opponent would ramp up intensity and allow the coaches a better tool to evaluate players. It would give the game a different tempo for new coordinators calling plays and see how all the mid-year enrollees react to game-level competition.
Players
You think they want a 15th session against their teammates or an actual opponent? Sure, it can be fun to punk your roommate and brag about eating steak over hot dogs if you win the Spring Game. But a real game will be a very real carrot to keep players engaged in probably their least favorite time on the calendar. Having a chance to show out in front of fans and television will undoubtedly keep the players motivated as the spring builds to a closing event rather than simply one final workout before the pads are put away.
Fans
I don’t really need to waste much space here. Fans would like it better. The end.
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Athletics departments
Whether it is to raise money for charity as Saban suggested or to bring in some revenue, there is no downside here. Marketing departments do their best to dress these things up, but they would have plenty more to work with if the event took the form of a real game with real opponents, and attendance would explode.
TV partners
Georgia’s spring game on Saturday had 181,000 viewers on ESPN2, according to Show Buzz Daily, which was roughly the equivalent of what the NASCAR trucks qualifying pulled in on FS1 on Friday afternoon. That number wouldn’t skyrocket into the millions, but Saturday afternoons in late March and April are pretty open to college football fans hungry to watch some competitive football. The first year will balloon with the curiosity factor, and there’s a good chance coaches and players are going to like it after Year 1 and make the games even more competitive going forward. More competition will lead to better opponents, which will lead to higher ratings, which will lead to happier TV partners, which will lead to higher rights fees when the time comes.
The NCAA needs to step aside and allow this to happen. There should be no restrictions outside of the event counting as one of the 15 spring sessions. If two schools agree to do it, great. If a school doesn't want to do it, great. In-state, out-of-state, it doesn't matter. If the University of Rhode Island wants to play at Hawaii in April, have at it. The concept would likely be for Power 5 teams to play FCS, HBCU's or maybe some lower-level G5s, but whatever makes sense to the coaches and schools involved should be the only guideline. Conference commissioners need not get involved.
Are there some cons to all these pros? Sure. Injuries may happen that otherwise wouldn’t have (but if it's too dangerous to have one game four months before the season, that's an issue with the sport itself). Some transfer portal issues may arise if a player shows out and then gets tampered with and poached in the spring portal window. (That already happens). Power 5 fans may grumble about playing poorly or even losing one of these games (to which I would say, do NFL fans complain about losing preseason games with backup players?).
College football is America’s second-favorite sport behind the NFL. It needs to market its product to the best of its ability, and it is missing an enormous opportunity to generate offseason conversation with real spring games. It is time to spruce things up, spring forward and make these games a reality.
