Spring fever? Not for college football
Posted: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 8:49 PM
I didn’t get a chance to tune into the Georgia’s “G-Day Game” last Saturday. Since I was vacationing in Honolulu at the time, the telecast was on too early for me. Had it been on at a more convenient time, I probably would have passed on it anyway, in favor of dozens of other things. Having already seen hundreds of college football practices, I’m usually in no rush to take in another, especially on television.
I’m sure there were no shortage of viewers hungry to devour a slice of college football in April. And if that’s your situation, it’s hard to do any better than checking out what’s going in between the hedges.
However, it didn’t look like I missed much.
The scrimmage opened with a flashy 35-yard flea-flicker connection between quarterback Joe Cox and wide receiver A.J. Green, but that was about it for the entire afternoon.
Then came a parade of field goals in what ended up as a 13-3 victory by the Red over the Black. The hope in Athens is that the combined Bulldogs squad will have enough offensive firepower to stick with Oklahoma State on the road in the season opener.
It wasn’t until nine seconds remaining that an actual touchdown was scored at Sanford Stadium. Thank goodness for that 20-yard run by Carlton Thomas.
Reluctantly I plan to watch Alabama’s “A-Day Game” on Saturday. I’m back in North America and curious to see what it is exactly that 170,338 fans have seen at Bryant-Denny Stadium at the first two spring games of the Nick Saban era.
It’s unlikely that it’ll resemble what took place at Legion Field during Alabama Birmingham’s much less celebrated spring game this past Saturday, which ended up being a 42-30 shootout.
These things are usually snoozers that make NFL exhibition games worth watching.
Typically, you gain much more insight by watching certain periods of a regular practice session. That’s certainly the case at Colorado, where Dan Hawkins’ practices are closed and scrimmages are open.
Most of these spring games are geared more toward a fan-friendly open house.
Some schools have even gone to extremes.
At Mississippi State the spring game is such serious business that a couple of auction winners -- Bud Thompson and Richard Adkerson -- will help split the Bulldog squad up, give the pre-scrimmage speeches and coach the teams. Preparing for his first season in Starkville with a team that went 4-8 last year, Dan Mullen must feel pretty comfortable about how things went during his first 14 spring sessions. Or more likely, it wasn’t the rookie coach’s call.
Nevertheless, these types of feel-good afternoons are important because it will be more than three months before the pads get strapped on again and having the right mindset during the summer months is vital.
Staying away from what happened to Florida State tailback Ty Jones is key. The sophomore running back will have a foul taste in his mouth for a long time after he fumbled four times during the Garnet & Gold Game. That sort of thing can only happen in a meaningless spring game. One or two fumbles at Doak Campbell Stadium usually earns you a spot on the bench for the rest of the day, if not longer.
Of course, even worse things can happen.
Injuries at quarterback have Nebraska scrambling to find bodies to take snaps at their spring game. Latravis Washington, previously a linebacker, is now in the mix for Saturday’s festivities.
Along those same lines, spring drills have even been bad for adidas over at UCLA.
There are the rare occasions that a spring game offers some excitement. Last week at Arizona, the white-clad Wildcats beat the blue ones, 23-21, on the final play. Matt Scott’s 5-yard touchdown pass to Terrell Turner meant that their team got to eat steak, leaving hamburgers and hot dogs to their teammates on the losing end. But the scrimmage and all 14 practice sessions that preceded it still didn’t determine who will be the starting quarterback this season. Scott and two others will fight in out in the fall.
There’s no mystery regarding who will be the starting quarterback at Texas. But some of the 44,000 in attendance at the Longhorns’ spring game were probably slightly surprised by the lackluster performance by Colt McCoy, who wasn’t aided by windy conditions while completing 11-of-24 for 95 yards. But all of them wouldn’t trade him for anyone else.
At basketball schools it’s a little different.
Only 2,000 showed up for North Carolina’s spring game during March Madness.
But in some ways that seems a lot more appropriate than the throngs we’ll see on Saturday in Tuscaloosa.
