CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => Big XII => Topic started by: Mr Tulip on April 16, 2019, 12:13:01 PM
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The grandest form of nothing, but our last organized football until August.
Texas saw sunny weather and a 30mph wind that made it pointless to throw the ball. The top WR were rehabbing, but so were the top DBs. The run game looked like you'd expect when the defense knows you're going to run - and can't have your QB be one of those runners.
The only takeaway was that the defensive youngsters aren't clueless. With a narrowed scope of responsibility, they identified and kept up. The #2 QB has adequate knowledge and skill. The TEs need to remember to catch the ball.
Anyone else see a spring game?
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UGA plays this Saturday, I have a small notion of attending if the weather is nice. I expect the coach to say what he always says about such things.
The crowd will be enthused for about 10 minutes and then many will migrate to watering holes.
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OU moved their game up from Saturday afternoon to Friday evening, due to terrible weather being forecast for the original time.
Apparently it went more or less as well as could be expected.
Jalen Hurts--transfer from Alabama--had a good game and looks like he'll be the starting QB. He's not--so far--quite as good a passer as Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray were, but he's still pretty good. And he promises to be a strong runner, although it's hard to tell when the QBs are wearing blue jerseys. Tanner Mordecai, about whom in practice much positive had been said, had a bad game, and probably fell back in the starting-QB race. Tanner Schafer, walk-on RS soph, actually looked better than Mordecai.
There is talent at WR like I've never seen at OU before. They made quite a few very good plays.
Defense was hoping for a big number of takeaways, but only got one pick, plus a few passes broken up.
Based on what was visible Friday, I think our offense will probably be little less explosive than it has been the last couple of years, but the defense will probably be somewhat better. How much progress the defense makes will probably determine how successful the season is.
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Hurts should be fine at QB. As you say, he's not elite as a passer, but better than average, and he knows the game obviously. He can use the tools around him effectively.
The coach speak after SGs always strikes me as the same, some good things, and some things we need to work on, etc. I don't know how either side can be exceptional. A young player may stand out of course, some new WR making a couple of grabs that are a something.
It has turned into a recruiting tool it seems to me.
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Spring games are public relations. A coach isn't making a decision based off of one contrived intrasquad scrimmage. If you're an early enrollee, you've had 20 practices in college.
QBs can't be touched. Anyone with a nick is held out due to "injury concerns". Any wrinkles a coach has in mind won't be even hinted at in the spring. Of course, as always, it's a zero sum game. Any big plays your offense makes are big plays your defense gives up.
We watch because we know we're entering the long, dark teatime of the college football wasteland.
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Yeah, on occasion though, somebody relatively unknown makes some splashy plays at a skill position and stirs the pot. That's about it, but if the weather is nice, it can be a fun experience. Weather here predicted to be cloudy with a high of 56°F Saturday, versus a high of 81°F today. Meh.
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weather was decent in Lincoln, NE last Saturday afternoon - 55 degrees and breezy, sun was shining
good pre-game tailgate, games was a good production, nothing of note.
The just arrived freshman QB [color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]Luke McCaffrey[/color] looks fast.
big recruiting day
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I wonder how much the success of a SG relates to how many recruiting minds were impacted favorably versus anything else.
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more so in Lincoln than most places
of course most places don't draw large crowds
and many places don't need to dispel the myth that the campus and stadium are located in a cornfield
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more so in Lincoln than most places
of course most places don't draw large crowds
and many places don't need to dispel the myth that the campus and stadium are located in a cornfield
they grow corn in Nebraska?
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The SG does seem to attract a lot of potential recruits from what I can discern. If they show up and see say 10,000 people versus 90,000 people, I'm sure the difference is noted.
I surmise they also get to see whatever GD rituals the team may have and get an idea of what a real GD would be like. The potentials can see the "facilities" and campus at any time, I imagine the facilities are important to them, a flashy dressing area and weight room etc., but I presume any upper level P5 has all that.
I'd look to see where I could play early potentially.
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they grow corn in Nebraska?
not nearly as well as they do in Iowa.........
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not nearly as well as they do in Iowa.........
spent two weeks in Scottsbluff a while back and all I remember seeing was several huge
piles of sugar beets
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Why aren't the Hawkeyes called the Cornshuckers?
Why aren't the Cornshuckers called the Bugeaters?
Why aren't the Aggies called sheep molesters?
(That last one was a trick question-- they ARE called sheep molesters!)
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Why aren't the Hawkeyes called the Cornshuckers?
Why aren't the Cornshuckers called the Bugeaters?
Why aren't the Aggies called sheep molesters?
Why aren't the sooners called land grabbers
(That last one was a trick question-- they ARE called sheep molesters!)
forgot one FIFY
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the sooners are called land thieves
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*** Frost made an interesting comment when he said that the Husker coaching staff isn’t afraid to show just how many more fans showed up at NU’s spring game than anywhere else in the country.
“We don’t negative recruit, I don’t want to blast other people, but we will show (recruits) photos of other schools’ spring games compared to ours,” Frost said. “That’s just a testament to our fans. There’s other schools with 200-300 people. … I expect ours to be sold out for a long time here.”
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He might want to be careful playing that game, it could backfire if other programs have more fans than NU.
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there are usually a couple programs that have more fans at a spring game than the Huskers, but those teams are top 10 recruiting programs that he can't match for the 5 stars anyway. And the number will be less than 5.
much more to gain than to lose
maybe OSU and PSU in the Big Ten
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If you claim to have more fans showing up than anywhere else in the country, and it is not correct, it's misleading, if anyone cares.
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I don't think he says that the Huskers always have more fans attend than any other program because that's just not accurate. He knows better
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Yeah, I read the comment above that that he didn't make.
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well, the stuff between the quotation marks doesn't say this ed zachery
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The Dawg spring game was predictably boring, I watched some of it. They were passing on almost every down, which makes sense I think. The two backup QBs made some nice throws and some bad ones (duh). The freshman QB who is something like 6'6" and 200 pounds has wheels and a good arm, but needs weight, duh. The Dawgs start off at Vandy and then two pastries before hosting ND, so perhaps they can get some experience and keep Fromm healthy. Low attendance in part because of the lousy weather.
https://www.dawgnation.com/football/instant-analysis-defense-the-winner-as-red-edges-black-22-17-in-g-day-game (https://www.dawgnation.com/football/instant-analysis-defense-the-winner-as-red-edges-black-22-17-in-g-day-game)
A lot of potential recruits present, which as noted, is perhaps the real reason for these things.
Does anyone know about when spring games became something folks attended as opposed to a scrimmage in the stadium in front of 200 people?
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Husker spring game attendance by year
I couldn't paste the chart, but this article shows the spring game at UNL has been around 5,000 folks since 1950.
My first spring game was in 1982, a can of beans donated got me in the stadium. 23,000 of us. National titles and coaching changes boost attendance..
https://dataomaha.com/documents/husker-spring-game-attendance-through-the-years (https://dataomaha.com/documents/husker-spring-game-attendance-through-the-years)
1939: “Harvard” nips “Yale,” 10-7, as the Huskers’ spring practices end. Vike Francis� 26-yard field goal late in the fourth quarter was the difference, and more than 2,000 fans attended.
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I don't recall it being "a thing" when I was in school (1972-1980). I do recall the freshman games at times, not anything about spring practice.
Of course, back then "things were different". When Nebraska demolished UGA in 1969, Dooley "realized" that perhaps he needed a more organized system of weight training. They had not had one, the players were on their own. Maybe they were encouraged or whatever, but they had no real weight training strength system.
I played volleyball with several starters in 1973 and they were not notably huge athletic specimens. Our tight end often ended up opposite me on the net and we had some battles. I think they current TEs would have destroyed me. I was 6'4" and about 180 lbs and fairly athletic at the time. I think today a football player on campus is easily recognizable as such most of the time, perhaps DBs excepted. The UGA OL averaged about 245 pounds in 1995. They average around 330 now. I doubt any P5 team has a 245 OLman anywhere.
I suspect the spring game at UGA curca 1975 was simply the final scrimmage played in the stadium and anyone could show up, but it wasn't a thing.
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I was born in '71, so there's a lot that went on before me (and a lot that's gone one during me thus far).
Looking at it today, it's easy to forget that college football was an activity at one point. It wasn't a multi-billion dollar linchpin affecting the viability of Universities and athletics programs. TV Sports contracts weren't something that could ruin an entire broadcasting network.
Even during my fandom, we used to be terrified of the summer - fearing the police reports detailing something stupid a critical player did. We don't really worry about that much now, because anyone with a future is staying at school all summer taking a class and primarily going through conditioning drills. If you're a player, it never ends.
Scholarships have limits. Practices have limits. You've convinced the alumni to fund a billion dollar monument to your program - one that only gets 6 or 7 games per year. Considering the official visits for recruits, open it up one more time and pretend. We all know its nothing, but it's the grandest form of nothing.
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My kids once asked me if I watched video tapes a lot when I was a kid.
Kids today may ask what the Internet was like in 1980.
Or cell phones. Or computers.
I walked up to the library today and was struck by all the large buildings that have sprung up around the area. Circa 1950 this was a residential area. A fairly tall couple of building were built around 1970. Photos show them amidst a lot of houses. It was an attempt to urbanize the area, and pretty much failed until about 2000 or so. This whole area was vastly different when I was in tenth grade, and by the time I was in college it was an area to avoid unless you wanted drugs.
It was a nice walk for me, beautiful weather tending to being slightly warm in the sun. I enjoy walking.
Things change. I was writing a history of my family and made the remark that when my dad was born in 1917, their lives were no different from folks living in 1717, no electricity, no paved roads, no effective medicines, maybe a few cars, maybe not, ... if you live without electricity you basically are living in the Dark Ages.
That area today is a big retirement mecca.
This photo is from 1895 and shows a college game played across the street from where we live now:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/1895_Auburn_-_Georgia_football_game_at_Piedmont_Park_in_Atlanta_Georgia.jpg)
I love this old stuff. But I digress.
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OU used to have a Varsity vs. Alumni Game at the end of spring. That probably ended in the 1970s, and the Red-White Game took its place. I don't think it got really big until sometime after 2000.
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The news about any UGA-OU series has abated, hopefully not for good reason, just absence of news. They have played once, and never regular season H&A.
I'd like to see a UGA-UW series someday, either Wisconsin or Washington, I'm not picky. Who would you like to see your team play?
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I hope the OU-UGA series turns out to be for real.
I'd always like to see OU play Notre Dame. I'd like to see a series with USC. Florida, too.
I'm looking forward to the scheduled series with LSU, Tennessee, Michigan, Nebraska, Bama, and Clemson. Hope I'm still alive for all of them.
I'd like to go see OU at Army in 2020. Especially if it's at Michie Stadium rather than somewhere in/around NYC. Michie Stadium is a beautiful venue, overlooking the Hudson River. I can't remember how much of the river itself (if at all) you can see from the stadium, but the valley is still lovely even when you can't see the river. It's scheduled for 26 September. The leaves should be starting to turn.
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Gatorama said Michie was perhaps his favorite stadium.
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OU used to have a Varsity vs. Alumni Game at the end of spring. That probably ended in the 1970s, and the Red-White Game took its place. I don't think it got really big until sometime after 2000.
Evidently the alumni game went to at least 1994. I remember Toby Keith getting his ankle broken but I had to look up the date.
https://newsok.com/article/2463437/game-was-worth-broken-ankle-keith-says (https://newsok.com/article/2463437/game-was-worth-broken-ankle-keith-says)
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Does anyone know about when spring games became something folks attended as opposed to a scrimmage in the stadium in front of 200 people?
i think it was about the time Bill Snyder came to KState. He is the first one I remember locking down the practices and banishing the media and then, it seems, everyone did. Before that reporters and fans were able to attend and report on practices so the spring game wasn't a big deal. Nowadays, it is about the only time fans can actually see the players do something.
Ironically, KState's new coach has opened some of the practices and has a meet & greet instead of a spring game.
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For the second consecutive season, the Huskers led college football in spring game attendance with a sellout. In fact, the 85,946 fans who showed up marked the second-highest figure in program history behind last year's 86,818, which falls in the Top 10 all-time after Memorial Stadium in one day after Scott Frost was hired as coach. Many of the Huskers' most important players sat out due to injury, but Heisman candidate Adrian Martinez did play the first half and led a touchdown drive.
https://247sports.com/college/nebraska/LongFormArticle/Nebraska-Huskers-Alabama-Ohio-State-Tennessee-Penn-State-spring-game-attendance-college-football-131430647/#131430647_10 (https://247sports.com/college/nebraska/LongFormArticle/Nebraska-Huskers-Alabama-Ohio-State-Tennessee-Penn-State-spring-game-attendance-college-football-131430647/#131430647_10)
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I'd like to go see OU at Army in 2020. Especially if it's at Michie Stadium rather than somewhere in/around NYC. Michie Stadium is a beautiful venue, overlooking the Hudson River. I can't remember how much of the river itself (if at all) you can see from the stadium, but the valley is still lovely even when you can't see the river. It's scheduled for 26 September. The leaves should be starting to turn.
Hey, you got your wish, CW!
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Hey, you got your wish, CW!
Yep.
Now I've got to get tickets.