NCAA makes official ruling on proposed spring game between Colorado, Syracuse

Deion Sanders and Fran Brown set out to do something college football has never seen before. A spring game between Colorado and Syracuse was proposed to the NCAA after the idea came together on social media. It’s something the sport has never seen before: two programs facing off against each other outside of live games.

On Friday, the decision from the NCAA was made official. The FBS Oversight Committee will not recommend a waiver to allow the game to take place. It argued other programs are too far into spring practice to schedule such a game, as well as academic concerns and potential recruiting advantages not available to other programs.

Sanders was the one to get the ball rolling on March 17 before Colorado’s spring practice began. He believes spring games should still occur as programs across the country decide to cancel them. But Sanders threw out going head-to-head against somebody else instead of an intersquad scrimmage.

“The Spring Game will be televised on ESPN2 … on the 19th,” Sanders said. “We got to sell this thing out and pack this thing because the way the trend is going, you never know if this is going to be the last spring game. I don’t believe in that. I don’t really want to condone that. I would like to play in the spring. Actually, I (would) like to play against another team in the spring. That’s what I’m trying to do right now. 

“To have a competitive (game) against your own guys kind of gets monotonous. You really can’t tell the level of your guys because, you know, it’s the same old, same way. Everybody kind of know each other. Towards the end, I would like to style it like the pros. I would like to practice against someone for a few days, then you have the spring game and I think the public will be satisfied with that tremendously. I think it’s a tremendous idea. I’ve told those personnel who should understand that it’s a tremendous idea.”

Word of Sanders’ proposal got around on social media. Brown was the first power conference head coach to speak up, taking to X to basically accept an invitation to Boulder. He claimed Syracuse was willing to travel out West for the event.

“[Deion Sanders] we will come to Boulder for 3 days,” Brown wrote on Twitter. Within 20 minutes of his posting, Brown’s tweet had racked up more than 400 retweets and 2,000 likes.

On3’s Thomas Goldkamp contributed to this report