Maybe Spring Games are doing to die. And maybe that's even okay!

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

I appreciate the well wishes over the weekend! Thanks to the wonder of Antibiotics, I’m doing much, much better now. Probably not running any 5Ks or lifting heavy this week or anything, but I’m healthy enough to write, report, FOIA, and on Sunday, watch the Super Bowl.

Personally, I thought it was great. A game where you don’t actually have to pay attention to every single snap is perfect for somebody just getting over a major sickness.

There’s plenty else going on in the sporting calendar now that the NFL season is over, from the run to March Madness in men’s and women’s college basketball, to the NBA and NHL regular seasons, to the start of college softball and more, I understand why the die-hard football fan might feel a bit empty.

Now that the Super Bowl is over, there’s not really any live football (I’m not counting whatever pretend Spring Football League is technically solvent at the moment) until college football spring games in April.

If you’re from a part of the country where that isn’t exactly a thing, let me explain.

I didn’t go to very many Ohio State football games as a kid. It wasn’t that I lacked the interest…it’s just that the tickets were so dang expensive, and once you added in parking, food, and everything else for a family of five, going to a game more than once every couple of years felt hard to justify. That was true for a lot of the folks I grew up around as well.

But there was an alternative. If you couldn’t swing the $60 bucks (at least) for a ticket to watch Ohio State turn Kent State into paste, you could watch Ohio State battle… Ohio State. In the cold! For way less money!

Friends, this is the Spring Game, a tradition shared by uh, dozens of major college football programs. At the end of the spring practice period, a school holds some sort of scrimmage, opens the stadium gates, and lets fans come watch. For the walk-ons, it’s a chance for them to play in game-like conditions. For families, it’s a chance to watch ol’ Alma Mater without paying out the wazoo. And for recruiting degenerates, it was a chance to check in on which freshmen were “flashing”, as if a few out-of-context practice plays in April could actually tell you anything meaningful in October.

At least one major program is insinuating they might walk away from the Spring Game tradition…because of tampering

Here’s ESPN, earlier this month, checking in on Nebraska football:

Essentially, Rhule is concerned that a spring game, especially a spring game that is witnessed by 76,000 people and broadcast on BTN, will give opposing coaches free tape on his backups. Once opposing teams have that tape, they will then be armed with the critical information they need to attempt to poach his players.

I think this argument is a little ridiculous, even though I’m sure plenty of other P4 coaches would swear under oath that it’s a very real concern. But if that bad argument is persuasive enough for a school like Nebraska to seriously consider getting out of the Spring Game business… I think it’s worth examining whether the entire operation is worth it for everybody else. I’m inclined to think that it isn’t. Here’s why.

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I had to throw in that whole Spring Game Explainer thing in this newsletter because most places do not care about these events like Ohio State and Nebraska fans do

According to CBS, Ohio State led the nation in Spring Game attendance last season, with announced attendance of 80,012. Alabama was second, with 72,358, followed by Penn State (67,000), Nebraska (60,452) and Georgia (55,101). Over the last decade or so, those programs have been near the top of any Spring Game annual attendance figure I’ve found.

Here’s a list of all the other schools that brought in over 50,000 fans last year:

Zero. Only nine schools brought in at least 40,000…and since these are official school numbers, not scanned tickets, it’s safe to assume these are all almost assuredly overcounts.

Spring Game attendance anywhere near 40,000 is not typical in college football, even among highly successful programs. Syracuse, for example, had a program record attendance for a spring game in 2024…with 16,679 tickets. Washington reported 5,000 fans, and UCLA, about 11,000.

Now, does every college program build out and market the event the same way that Nebraska and Ohio State do? No, they don’t. Does inclement weather and other schedule priorities make it difficult to get 30,000+ fans to a football game? Sure, in many markets, I bet that’s the case.

But I think that doesn’t change my point. There isn’t a true, nationwide fan-driven demand for in-person simulated games. There are 100+ markets that can draw 20,000+ fans to an actual college football game in the Fall, when fans expect those games to happen. In mid-April? Looks like there’s about twenty.

Yeah, but not everybody even does an actual spring football game! Why would you expect 45,000 people to watch passing drills and blocking sleds?

And you know why many programs don’t do actual games? It isn’t because of the transfer portal, or tampering, or NIL. It’s because many schools don’t have enough healthy linemen to safely attempt to simulate complete game conditions.

Remember, in April, a team typically doesn’t have their complete roster, as they’ll be down their last senior class, whoever transferred or retired, and might not have their new players (transfers, incoming freshmen) enrolled and academically eligible. You’ll typically also have some injured players, especially since Spring Games are at the very end of the Spring Practice window. Many teams do not enter their potential game with 10-12 healthy offensive linemen that can be spread out across two different teams.

In the House era, as rosters shrink to 105 (with few teams going much above 90 scholarships), finding enough linemen for a scrimmage will be even more challenging. And even if you can scrape together enough guys for a game, do you want to risk injury by putting a potentially important quarterback or skill position player behind an offensive line with three walk-ons or third-stringers?

This is a major reason why playing with alternative rules has become more popular….like having an “offense vs. defense” scrimmage, that awards points for tackles-for-loss or turnovers, or prohibiting QB sacks, or having some players play for both teams. That makes complete sense in a practice format, but it makes for a lousy television and viewing experience.

Again, I wouldn’t blame this on tampering. But if this is a tradition that has to evolve or go away, I think that’s okay

I have a hard time coming around to the idea that the only way that an opposing program would know if a player was good enough to try to poach would be to look at a few snaps from Spring Game scrimmage. If you want to see a prospect torch a walk-on quality player in a game, just go to HUDL…that’s what high school film is. It isn’t a secret!

If anything, a place whose fans cared enough where more than 60,000 would go to a practice in person would be the kind of place, and uh, NIL Donor Environment that would make staying an attractive proposition. Unless, of course, that staff stunk at player evaluation or culture building. But that’s a different newsletter.

But even if the tampering fears are overblown, concerns about player health, the utility of a public event, and how it fits with a changing recruiting calendar are all pretty valid, in my opinion. Most of the country seems to have already reached the conclusion that it isn’t worth trying to force a game into happening.

Ideally, schools can find a way to create an affordable not-quite-a-game-event later in the Spring, or much, much earlier in the Fall camp season, so fans can more affordably have a stadium experience.

I’m sure BTN and the SEC Network can find something else to air on those Saturdays. Like, for example: Softball.

Hey, speaking of Softball, ever wonder what a Softball coach buyout typically looks like? Or what a typical salary is for a mid-major college baseball coach? Or what an athletic director has to do in order to get salary bonuses?

You don’t have to wonder. We’ve FOIA’d close to 6,000 coach, vendor, and administrator contracts in the Extra Points Library, so you can download the exact PDFs and see for yourself. We’ve got athletic department budgets from UCLA to Vermont, coaching contracts from Auburn to Youngstown State, and much, much more.

Check out if EPL has what you’re looking for today!

And finally, here’s a random YouTube music link, because the more you guys click on links, the better our email deliverability gets:

The dance from the music video appears to be a meme that is sneaking into my Instagram Reels page, which I assume means it’s a good time to watch the entire video again. Like everything the Talking Heads did, it’s insanely catchy, even if I don’t understand it.

Does the dance make any sense? No, but that isn’t the point. In fact, I believe the point is to stop making sense. Eh? Eh???

Enjoy, my friends. I’ll see you on the internet tomorrow.