Shane Beamer in favor of college football scrimmaging against other teams
A day after Auburn coach Hugh Freeze expressed his desire for college teams to have the opportunity to scrimmage against other schools, Shane Beamer shared those same sentiments. Sentiments he’s been preaching on he says for years.
“I was back on this soapbox back in like 2008-or-09,” said Beamer. “There’s an old interview that y’all could probably dig up on the local TV stations where I stood right out there in the end zones of the old practice fields and I said exactly what Hugh Freeze said yesterday. I said, ‘it’d be great to play a spring game or a preseason game against another team,’ and you could give the money to charity or something.”
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During a spring practice press conference on Monday, Freeze suggested that Alabama colleges play each other in a scrimmage during the spring. This led to Beamer answering a similar question when asked about it on Tuesday.
“I love the spring games as we have it. But as you guys have heard me say before, we’re the only sport that doesn’t get — in August, before the season, an exhibition or a scrimmage or a preseason game like the NFL teams do. We’re the only ones. So we practice in August for however it is 29 days or whatever number of practices there are and then we go play for real.”
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The fact that not just NFL teams but high school as well as many youth football teams have scrimmages against other teams before their season starts but not college teams is pretty remarkable. I get there’s logistics involved and comparing a football team with 100+ players on the roster compared to a soccer, baseball, or basketball team, isn’t exactly the same. That’s why the idea of playing a different even in the spring is something Beamer would welcome.
“If we can’t do it in August, great, let’s do something in the spring time where we can compete against another team. You’ll get great crowds for it and be able to give the money back to other people as well. I’ve been saying it for 15 years now but (we) haven’t made a lot of progress on that.”
