GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Nick Saban sped his little red Honda sports car up the white gravel road of the LSU practice fields and by a sports writer walking on The Ponderosa to cover spring football before the 2003 season.
Saban had just read the writer’s column in the Baton Rouge Advocate about why there should be no spring football. He stopped his car.
“Hey, Guilbeau, I read your column today,” he said with disdain, but was half kidding. “You just don’t want to carry your ass out here and cover this.”
And he sped off again.
And he was exactly right as usual.
I had spelled out 12 reasons not to have spring football in that column with the most important one being that it clashed with the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
Others were the fact that if nobody had spring football, no one would need it. Everyone would be even. Because – and this is another fact – if a player does something in spring football – like win a starting job – he’s not going to be a starter unless he does the same thing in August.
During spring, we always hear of how great a player is doing. Then we never hear from him again in the fall.
Now, there are good reasons for spring football. Saban’s favorite was the fact that it gave him a chance to work on the backups and get them better for the season after next in many cases. That clearly has merit.
But the main problem with spring football is the main issue with NFL training camps. They are a relic. Back in the day before athletes stayed in shape year round like now, college and NFL players needed “camp” to shed the extra pounds they put on during the off-season. That no longer applies.
Another issue with spring football is the number of injuries.
Another one is the fact that it makes players robots. They’re in college. Let them experience something other than the football facility. They’re virtually there all summer, fall, winter and spring. Give them a break, and they’ll be better for it. And their grades may improve.
With all this NIL crap, maybe they could take a business course and learn about money before blowing it. Professional athletes are still doing that in their 20s and 30s. Have you seen the 30 for 30 documentary entitled “Broke?” It should be a prerequisite for every new NIL teenage millionaire.
Maybe without spring football, players will actually get to see why there are all those other buildings on campus, to quote a classic Tank McNamara cartoon. You know, like the library. Well, skip that one if you’re at LSU. It’s more like a dungeon of horrors.
Some agreed, but most people laughed at that column from decades ago.
But who’s laughing now?
It is for slightly different reasons, but now more and more people, particularly college football coaches, are against the spring football game, at least.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, who is much younger at heart than his 49 years and even a progressive when he’s not being immature, has been ahead of the curve on this. He refreshingly made a mockery of his spring “game” last year with activities for players instead, dubbed the “Grove Bowl Games.” There was a hot dog eating competition, a dunk contest and a tug-of-war.
Kiffin was one of the first to realize that traditional spring games led to those backup players as well as starters being snatched up via the NCAA Transfer Portal after a televised or much-publicized spring game. So he smartly dashed it. He wasn’t going to lose any good players to the portal – or to injuries for that matter – because of a meaningless spring game.
Others have followed. USC, Nebraska and Texas are among those who will not be having spring games this year.
Thank you for telling me I’m right.
LSU coach Brian Kelly is old school and still had a spring game last year, but he has the No. 1 transfer portal class at the moment – several of whom will be in spring practice beginning March 8. He also has more than a dozen of his top 10 Class of 2025 high school signees already in school who will also be at spring practice. So, he doesn’t want the backups from his newfound talent glut to be seen by portal thieves as he is wisely following Kiffin’s lead.
“There’s more of a, ‘Why don’t we just keep our business a little more closely guarded than being so public about it?,” Kelly said to the Baton Rouge Advocate. “Especially with the ability to transfer so easily. There’s much more of a sense of that.”
So, get ready for a new and less-football-like spring game, LSU fans, on Saturday, April 12, in Tiger Stadium. Maybe they’ll fill Death Valley with water for swim meet!
“I don’t know if it’s going to be a spring game format, but there’s going to be action,” Kelly said.
Does that mean gambling?
“I just don’t know how we’re going to put it together,” he said.
Depending on what Kelly and his staff and LSU’s marketing minions come up with, it may just draw even less fans than LSU’s spring games have over the years.
One of the things I have always admired about LSU football fans in addition to their culinary crafts is how they annually diss the spring game like no other rabid fan base in the country. LSU football fans are real fans who know the game, and they know spring football is not real football. They have never had much interest in these glorified practices, even after national championship seasons.
The upcoming “Tiger Games” this spring will have even less attendance – like at a cross country meet.
Now, if we could just get rid of all the other spring football practice dates.
See you at Jazz Fest with Lane!
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