UVA Football coach Tony Elliott would be open to playing a spring game against an outside opponent, an idea being championed right now by Colorado coach Deion Sanders.
“I mean, the NFL guys, they have joint practices, they practice against each other. They play four preseason games. It’s just another opportunity to truly evaluate your football team against somebody else,” Elliott told reporters after practice on Monday.
That’s the idea that Sanders has been floating this spring, as other coaches are making moves to get out of the spring-game business altogether.
Nebraska, Texas, Ohio State and Southern Cal are among the Power 4 programs that will not be holding spring games this year.
Nebraska coach Matt Rhule cited as his reason his fear of the spring game opening his program “to the outside world and have people watch our guys and say, He looks like a pretty good player. Let’s go get him.”
I can’t fault Rhule for thinking that, with student-athletes in the NIL era being eternal free agents, and another portal season opening up at the end of the spring.
The argument that spring games are a window to poachers to find value on the portal market might end up winning the day over Sanders’ idea to move toward an NFL-like spring game.
As far as UVA Football is concerned in the here and now, Elliott’s squad will be playing a spring game on Saturday, April 12.
This year’s version will be like spring games from past years, basically a controlled intrasquad scrimmage.
To Elliott, who is trying to piece together an overhauled roster with a Top 20 transfer portal class and an incoming freshman class mixing with a core of returnees, the spring game “is an opportunity to evaluate guys.”
ICYMI
“We don’t have preseason games, so it’s an opportunity to create as close to a game-like situation in the stadium with all of the electronics going, with a good crowd,” Elliott said.
OK, we can be real here – the electronics will be going, the good crowd will not be a feature.
“It’s still a developmental sport, so I think those are the advantages of it,” Elliott said. “You look at where we are from a roster standpoint, yes, we got some guys that have played a lot of football, but I got, you know, a bunch of new guys that are here, what 20, 25 of them, you know, that just got here, some that got some experience, some guys that are undergrad guys that we still need to figure out what they can do. I got a lot of younger guys that are going to get a lot of reps, and it’s just an opportunity for us to have one more evaluation.”
And maybe down the road, we’ll get a spring game against an outside team.
“I mean, I think you got universities that are close enough to where you could create some interest. I’d be, I’d be all for it,” Elliott said. “Obviously, we need to know more details around it. But I’m not, I’m not opposed to it. I would welcome it. I mean, you scrimmage in high school, you know, you go to some states, they play spring games against other schools. And I’d be, I’d be all for an opportunity to be able to go out and kind of, you know, gauge yourself against somebody else before it before it counts for real.”
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Chris Graham
