Colorado Buffaloes head coach Deion Sanders takes all the slings and arrows from the media (guilty as charged), disappointed alums and colleagues, and still he doesn’t change, even when he’s dead wrong. Since he’s not shy about telling everyone who will listen that he knows everything there is to know about the game of football, he also makes himself a target.
But when the man is right, he’s right.
And Deion is 100% right about what could and should happen to spring practice in college football, and specifically, team’s annual spring football games.
The way things were: Back in the days before every game was televised, and we watched Notre Dame highlights with Lindsey Nelson on Sunday mornings, college teams would annually play a spring game against a team made up of alumni from that school. It was the “Varsity vs. Alumni” game back then, and it was always fun.
It was far more compelling than what’s been happening since those games came to an end in the early 1980s. Today’s glorified and tightly controlled intersquad scrimmage games are fine for the coaches, who get to see players in game-like action. But they aren’t a blast for those who choose to watch, and it’s tough to imagine that the players get too worked up about another intersquad practice.
Sanders’ idea is simple: instead of an intersquad matchup, have another team come to town – the way the NFL teams run “joint practices” in August – and have that visit end with an actual (exhibition) tilt between two schools wearing different colors. For two years in a row now, Deion has been trying to bring the Syracuse Orange to Boulder for spring practices and a game, only to be rebuffed by the NCAA. Last year, it was “we don’t have enough time” to assess the situation, and this year, after Deion and Syracuse head coach Fran Brown reached out much earlier, the response was no, because it’s about consolidating things for the next college football calendar year.
Yes, what Sanders and Brown want to do is currently against NCAA rules. But so was paying players until very recently, and we’ve all seen how that’s worked out.
The NCAA could change the rule if they wanted to, and perhaps they will. Perhaps they’ll give Deion credit for coming up with a terrific idea that would benefit literally everyone.
Better yet, they could make it mandatory that the visiting team must be an FCS program that is within a 500-mile radius (a one-day drive for mom and dad) of the FBS host school. For example, CU could play Weber State this March (instead of this September), while up the road, CSU could jointly practice with and then play against Southern Utah. Then the state’s two FBS programs could play each other when it counted.
The best idea yet (and Deion doesn’t get credit for this one) is that they could move these practices and games to mid-August as a tune up for the regular season. What would be the drawback to the Buffs hosting Syracuse in late March or mid-August for a game that doesn’t count… especially if that resulted in fewer injuries and a better start to the season? If you’ve paid close attention, there’s a lot of crummy football played during the opening weeks of the college football season.
Not every idea Deion has is a home run. But this one, the idea of having joint practices and a spring game that is more compelling for fans might be his best.
