🏈 Rehasing old subject: Spring Scrimmages, IE: UA vs GT : Dabo seems to think it's a great idea.

[TerryP]

Clemson’s Dabo Swinney is one of college football’s biggest advocates for the NCAA permitting a spring scrimmage against another team.
We’ve always endorsed the idea for three reasons: It would further enhance the enormous popularity of college football, it would give players and fans something to look forward to during the middle of the offseason, and most importantly it would generate much-needed revenue for college athletic departments struggling in the tough economy. Or proceeds could be donated to charity.

• UGA vs. Clemson.
• Texas A&M vs. Texas
• Georgia Tech vs. Alabama
• Oklahoma vs. Nebraska
  
• Tennessee vs. Virginia Tech
• Penn State vs. Pittsburgh
• Auburn vs. FSU

Would you be tempted to attend one of those scrimmages if they were held this spring? We think a lot of people would. The NCAA already allows scrimmages and pre-season exhibitions in other sports, including basketball and soccer.

Clemson's Dabo Swinney a spring football game vs. another team: "Personally, I think it would be a good thing for college football to do. College football takes in a lot of money. I think it would be an opportunity to give something back to your school or a charity." (AP)

“I don’t know if it will ever happen but it’s fun to think about,” Swinney told the AJC.
It’s an idea that has been kicked around before. Here are the basics of Dabo’s proposal: College football teams have the option of a spring game against themselves or another team. If you play another team, it must be both an out-of-conference team but also one within a reasonable driving distance. The coaches will agree upon the rules of the scrimmage in advance.
“Personally, I think it would be a good thing for college football to do,” Swinney said. “College football takes in a lot of money. I think it would be an opportunity to give something back to your school or a charity.
“The other side of it is this: We’re already doing it in basketball. Our basketball teams play other teams but it’s closed, so nobody knows about it. For example, Clemson plays Georgia in basketball every year. But it’s a closed scrimmage. You know, nobody can be in there except the two teams. If they didn’t want to do any type of public thing, I wouldn’t have a problem with having a closed football scrimmage where nobody could be there but the staffs of both teams.”
We’re going to have to interrupt Dabo there. We’d like an open scrimmage in front of the general public and …. for the best of spring matchups – national TV. Why? $$$
“The good thing about doing something like this is that in the spring time, you don’t have your whole team there. Like last spring, for example, we were missing 31 guys for spring ball. So we were very, very thin. This year, we have more bodies on hand. But still, every time you practice against each other in a scrimmage, you’re 100-percent invested with your personnel, as opposed to if you go and scrimmage somebody else. You’re scrimmaging their defense, while your defense is on the sidelines. When your offense is out there, your defense is on the sidelines. You’re not 100-percent vested with what’s going on. I just think there’s something good with that.
“Plus I think a scrimmage would be a great way to further teach our guys and prepare them for the season … to be able to implement your schemes against another opponent, and it could be against anybody. Obviously, I don’t think you should do it against a team in your conference. But anybody else … maybe the NCAA could put stipulations like it’s got to be a team within a 100 or 200 miles or something like that. Most everybody could find somebody to scrimmage against.
“I think it would be fun. I think the players would enjoy it. I think the fans would enjoy it. But that’s just one guy’s opinion.”

Clemson's coach thinks a spring scrimmage vs. UGA would "fill it up" with stadium attendance (AJC)

Clemson has its annual spring game vs. Clemson on April 14, and expects a crowd of more than 30,000 fans. What if that scrimmage was against the SEC East champions located only 75 miles away? “If it was Georgia, we’d certainly fill it up,” Swinney said. “It would be like that for Clemson and a Georgia, or whomever it may be, in a scrimmage situation. It would probably be like that at many other spring scrimmages between teams in the Southeast region.”
What are the negatives? We can’t think of many. Some may say injuries. But this is college football, not rec football. If you ever go to a spring game (remember to drink a lot of caffeine to keep yourself awake), you will notice that teammates go just as hard against each other as they do against opponents during the regular season. They’re battling for jobs, and every practice snap is an audition for somebody.
We asked some other coaches what they thought about the idea:

• North Carolina’s Larry Fedora: “I think that would be great. I think you would get a pretty good idea on where your team is at that time. Putting on spring games against yourself is difficult just because of the amount of kids you have on scholarship that time of year … with your seniors gone and your freshmen not being there yet … plus you have other players out for the spring with injuries. All of that really makes it difficult to do an intra-squad scrimmage. So I think you could benefit from something like a scrimmage opponent in a lot of ways.” AJC Dream Matchup: North Carolina vs. South Carolina
• Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson: “Off the cuff, it sounds like it might be a good idea but I really haven’t thought much about it … It can get old practicing against yourself. Anytime you can play or scrimmage against somebody else, it would be good. The NFL certainly does it in training camp. Basketball plays an exhibition before their season.”
  
• Texas A&M’s Kevin Sumlin: “Dabo wants a jamboree? Why not? I don’t know. That’s a different deal. I think it’s different when you’re in the first year of your program like I am and you need every practice you can get … put it that way. If you ask me a couple of years from now, I might think differently.” AJC Dream Matchup: Texas A&M vs. Texas. “There wouldn’t be anything scrimmage-like if we played them. That would be a real game.”
• Kentucky’s Joker Phillips: “A lot of teams use their spring practices and spring game to get their team better with fundamentals. I would be opposed to playing another vicious game and losing a kid for the rest of the season.” AJC Dream Matchup: Kentucky vs. Louisville. “See what I mean? It’s going to be vicious if we’re scrimmaging Louisville.”
• Virginia’s Mike London: “I know Dabo personally. It’s an innovative idea, particularly when you look at conference realignment and television money. Playing against another team than yourself in the spring may bring in revenue to go toward other sports, non-scholarship sports, or other entities around the university … I imagine there would be some support for that idea if people really started talking seriously about it.” AJC Dream Matchup: Virginia vs. West Virginia

What would have to happen next for spring scrimmages to become a reality? “Any NCAA member school or conference can propose a rule change or update,” according to NCAA spokesperson Christopher Radford, who also provided us with a long list of bylaws that prevent it from happening right now.

 

[TerryP]

LBS brought this up a couple of weeks ago and while I wasn't on the "I'm in favor of" side, it was an interesting propostion. Dabo thinks so as well.

I'm posting this because of something Saban said about the same thing. His remarks were along the lines of how much fans would enjoy this kind of game. That's very true.

But, he also mentioned the game gives the staff the opportunity to look at guys, in action, further down the depth chart. That live, scrimmage environment is something CNS wouldn't want to lose. I can sure see why.

 

[bamaraider]

Oh man this put a good feeling in my stomach because of this taken into consideration with all the coaches agreeing on it. Think about the atmosphere at Bryant-Denny for a EXHIBITION GAME vs Oklahoma. I'm really hoping this happens, this would shorten up the already longgggg drought of no football.

 

[UAgrad93]

The proposal that Dabo mentioned is exactly like what high schools have in place. A school may choose an intra-squad game or a scrimmage game against an opposing school. Coaches agree to rules to be followed during the game, kicking situations, blitzing, b-teams on the field,etc.

 

[planomateo]

^^ why wait til the fall

 

[SemperTide]

Why not push to allow an in state school spring scrimmage? Staff would get to see how the 2&3 s have progressed, understand game plans assignments etc., keeps injuries to players down as opposed to playing against a bigger more physical team, cut the home and home or neutral site travel, be more of a (semi) true game not just another practice while still keeping play calls vanilla plus, I would really love to see us *****-slap UAB.

 

[LBS]

I would have a concern that there would be too much read into it. That is to say, as it is teams often do not play some players during the spring. Some decide to forgo spring in favor or surgery, or have proven players who may be sore or dinged up to sit out. If that carries over implying that they would not play in such a spring game, and that same team fails to impress, will that impact the polls?

More on a seperate post.

 

[LBS]

Just in case they need a slightly different idea, I like the idea of having a Futures Game. A Fresh/Soph game with no one who was a starter the previous season.