'Abnormal amount' of injuries could determine this year's Ole Miss Grove Bowl format
Ole Miss football is wrapping up its spring practices and it will culminate with the 2023 Grove Bowl inside Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday.
Spring games come in all shapes and sizes with teams across the country choosing to simulate a game as close to what will be witnessed this fall to holding drills or even skill events similar to the NBA All-Star weekend.
In head coach Lane Kiffin‘s previous two Grove Bowls it has been a mix of all the above. Last spring saw more of an actual scrimmage between two teams that are drafted by the players.
Kiffin has not determined this year’s format. After four weeks of practices there have been some players banged up, plus those who were already injured or recovering from offseason surgeries. The depth of players available is limited.
“We have a lot of injuries. Very abnormal amount,” Kiffin said on Tuesday. “Normally we let them draft and play it like a game versus the offense-defense format, which we’re so limited we may have to go to. We’ll have that answer as we get closer, but we are really, really limited in our number of people and have shortened practices. Have potentially talked about Saturday being our last practice.”
The Grove Bowl is, in a way, a dress rehearsal of sorts for how the 2023 home football schedule will be and a way for Oxford get back into the football spirit while in the midst of a busy spring and April schedule.
Fans come to see their favorite players and to take a look at the newcomers, which over the past couple years have been many with Kiffin’s success in the mid-year transfer portal.
With Ole Miss still deciding how this year’s spring game will look there is a proposal of change in the air regarding all spring games.
Last week Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze brought up turning the tradition of spring games and scrimmages on its head. The proposal was one that included teams playing other teams, specifically in-state opponents.
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The idea is not a completely foreign one as Mississippi high school teams play other teams in jamborees to cap their spring practices in late April and May. Alabama high schools follow that same format.
No change has been brought forward to the deciding heads of the NCAA nor even being considered, but it is one that has some coaches talking. Troy head coach John Sumrall liked the idea of Freeze’s proposal.
The idea has not made it across Kiffin’s desk but it is one that he found intriguing and once again related it to a NFL comparison.
“I don’t give a lot of things I can’t control a lot of thought because nobody’s going to, truly, ask my opinion and it’s not going to matter on that,” Kiffin said. “I do think that would be neat, exciting for fans. I guess kind of like spring training or something where you get another opponent to play or in the NFL preseason. I think that would be pretty neat.”
The 2023 Ole Miss Grove Bowl is schedule to start at 2 p.m. CT on Saturday. It will air on ESPN+ and SEC Network+
Watch Kiffin’s full press conference from Tuesday below. Video provided by Ole Miss Sports Productions.
