This Week in Coaching: Auburn's Hugh Freeze is right, it's a no-brainer that colleges should play spring games against other schools

There are a lot of bad ideas in college football. 

The controversial targeting rules. December’s crammed calendar. The NCAA pushing Congress to legislate NIL. The College Football Playoff expansion. 

I kid. Well, not really. 

But the notion that schools should play other schools in spring games is such a layup that of course the NCAA has bricked another sensible idea. 

Hugh Freeze has proposed the notion before. Dabo Swinney has as well. But Auburn’s new head coach raised the topic again this week in advance of the Tigers’ A-Day Game on Saturday. 

“Allow us to scrimmage somebody on A-Day. Another team. I think everybody would get out of it exactly what they want,” Freeze suggested. 

Hugh Freeze on his spring game proposal @abc3340

"Let Alabama play Troy and we play UAB or vice versa" pic.twitter.com/tl7lx57qZ1

— Chris McCulley (@ChrisMcCulleyTV) April 3, 2023

College teams have been doing this silly spring dance for decades, but the intrasquad scrimmages have run their course. The sport has evolved past them, as the transfer portal and a barrage of offseason surgeries have sapped many schools from the ability to even field rosters capable of multiple two-deeps. UCLA and Oklahoma State aren’t even pretending to hold a faux scrimmage this year. Missouri already scrapped its spring game and opted to hold a closed practice in its indoor stadium instead.

So in an effort to protect the players and allow a better environment for development and evaluation, why not have schools play other schools each March and April? The NFL does it. High schools do it, too.

It’s well past time the NCAA allows FBS teams to hold spring scrimmages.. 

Freeze made an interesting suggestion, tossing out “Let Alabama play Troy and we play UAB or vice versa or whoever, I don’t care, or Alabama State or whoever, and people will come and see that.”

There are some Yellowhammer State politics Freeze likely didn’t realize he stepped in there — Alabama has never played Troy and Auburn has played UAB once in school history — but his idea presents a framework of possibilities. 

To be clear, these spring games don’t need actual win-loss stakes. Colleges can keep their steaks versus beanie weenies outcomes.  

The game wouldn’t count for any records. The two schools could control the game’s rules or setup. Some QBs may be live. Others wouldn’t be. Guys nursing injuries or non-contact situations could still wear black jerseys. But the overall product — two different teams with a greater complement of total bodies available — would provide more entertainment for fans than a glorified practice.

“It lowers our injury possibilities by 50 percent. And coaches are smart enough to control not hitting each other’s quarterbacks. If you want to put a blue jersey or a different jersey on and don’t take them to the ground, we can do that,” Freeze said.

“I just think it would be great for the sport. I think it would be awesome. NFL gets to scrimmage against each other. High schools get to scrimmage against each other. I cannot for the life of me understand why we haven’t gotten to that point where we can pull that off.”

It’s well past time. 

Five years ago, ESPN was televising multiple SEC spring games each April. This year it’s airing one — the two-time reigning national champion Georgia Bulldogs on the Deuce. The only other game the main network is showing this entire spring is Colorado’s scrimmage. Thank you, Deion Sanders. 

The solution here isn’t complicated, either. 

With the expanded College Football Playoff plus growing media rights deals, TV networks want to show the best games in the fall — SEC vs. Big Ten. Big 12 vs. Pac-12. Whatever. What they won’t want to do is waste prime airtime on FCS schools getting drubbed by ACC or SEC programs. 

Well, why not play those games in the spring? Especially if the margins would likely be closer and more competitive because many star players likely would still not play much (if at all), but younger 4 and 5-stars on these Power 5 programs would get some real run against other D-1 competition.

Some may be in favor of Group of 5 matchups vs. Power 5 schools, and that’s certainly an option, too. But playing FCS vs. Power 5 schools in a spring scrimmage would eliminate the need for such contests five months later.

Freeze suggested playing scrimmages for charity — and that would be fantastic if similar-sized programs were squaring off — but paying the FCS schools similar payouts of what they receive in the fall would still help keep those programs afloat, and also provide a slew of fresh, better inventory for TV networks — in the spring and fall. In the meantime, schools would still get to host a major recruiting weekend and their program would be featured with more eyeballs on TV than the usual scrimmage.

It all makes too much sense, which of course is why it hasn’t happened yet because college football is typically allergic to drastic changes. Someday, hopefully soon, the powers at be will see what’s sitting right underneath their noses.