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The benefits of playing a Friday night spring game for South Carolina

UVA BIO PICby:Mike Uva•about 15 hours•

Mike_Uva

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Photo: Katie Dugan

On Saturday, Shane Beamer announced that South Carolina’s annual Garnet & Black spring football game will be held at night on Friday, April 18.

Now, on the surface, I get why some fans might not be thrilled about the game being on a Friday. Or, they might be asking, “Why not just play it on Saturday afternoon?”

Simply put, this is to help the Gamecocks from a recruiting standpoint.

South Carolina has enjoyed holding their spring games at night to both give recruits a taste of what Williams-Brice Stadium is like under the lights and to help get more prospects on campus. When the norm for other schools is to play a spring game in the afternoon, it allows USC to be more in a “prime time” slot. We’ve seen that benefit them in the past, with more recruits coming out.

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“I thought it was great last year,” Beamer said in 2023. “I like it from a recruiting standpoint because you get all day to visit with recruits. And I know our players like it being under the lights.”

Now, let’s look at the date. The spring game will take place on Easter Weekend. I can’t speak for every school, but I know there are a lot of schools that are off on Good Friday. Whether that’s the case for every recruit who is looking to come to the spring game or not, when a recruit has the ability to come in for a night spring game, they’re able to spend more time with the coaching staff beforehand and be on campus more. That’s not as easy to do when the spring game is in the afternoon. Add in the fact that Easter is that weekend, and a Saturday afternoon game would probably lead to more recruits leaving right after the game or not going altogether.

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“It’s looser from a recruiting standpoint. You have more time,” added Beamer. “If it’s a home game, I’m sitting at the team hotel in a room by myself all day until we arrive at the stadium… For the spring game, if we have guys coming in at lunchtime, we can spend the day with them at the football facility. During the season, we’re at the hotel with the team. I am, and the assistant coaches are back and forth.”

In South Carolina, there’s never really an ideal time to play the spring game. Between Easter, Masters weekend, Heritage weekend, or even Dawn Staley and the Gamecocks women’s basketball team usually playing into that first weekend of April, it’s pick your poison when it comes to what’s the “ideal” weekend. Especially when Easter falls on such a late date this year. But, there’s a reason behind this thought process and it’s helped South Carolina land some massive recruits in recent years.

For those worried about how this could impact attendance, save your breath. I’ve said this before but the attendance numbers for a spring game means nothing. It’s a Richard measuring contest amongst fanbases. It’s about what the atmosphere is like and how the recruits enjoyed their time. As we’ve seen with this fanbase (2018 Monsoon game vs. Missouri) it can still be very rowdy inside of Williams-Brice, regardless of the turnout. I still expect the turnout to be good but I wouldn’t lose sleep about attendance. Especially when it’s free to attend the game.

While having a spring game on a Friday night might inconvenience some, the pros far outweigh the negatives, especially when it comes to recruiting.

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