Options For A Spring College Football Season
Four Options For A Spring Season
Contact/Follow @JeremyMauss & @MWCwire
Working through a spring football season
-Vegas Bubble
-Rivalries only
-Shortened season
-Monthly games
College football is officially being postponed from the Mountain West and other conferences as well. The attention now turns to how a spring football season can happen.
What is most surprising is that there were no real plans formulated at all about a potential spring season. COVID-19 has been in the United States since late January and it took a foothold in sports on March 11 when Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive and shut everything down.
That was five months ago and college football went on its way not coming up with alternate plans. Yes, there was testing improvements, the splash guard helmet
First off there are a lot of reasons why not to play college football in the spring and ESPN’s Rece Davis brings up a good point in player safety. After all of the strides that have been made to limit full-on tackling during practices to limit or reduce concussions and CTE plus basically no more two-a-day practices, going to spring can wipe that away.
Another reason that spring football may not be all that great is that those who have a shot in the NFL will take it and not risk anything. This goes beyond the top players like Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence but anyone who is even a mid-round pick should probably just pack it in and prepare for their NFL future.
In the Mountain West, specifically the Mountain Division, which would be playing football in very cold weather. Imagine a football game in Laramie, Fort Collins, or Logan in February. Does not sound all that fun.
Also, there is obviously the gigantic elephant in the room which is COVID-19, and who knows if a vaccine will be widely available or we understand the virus more in just a few months. Maybe there will be better rapid testing that can help with contact-tracing to limit the spread.
OK, now that all of the negative is out of the way, let’s discuss how a college football season in the spring could play itself out.
Jeff Brohm Plan
Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm came up with a plan, a mere day or so after the Big Ten shut down its season, and it is fairly detailed and has good ideas. He recognized the need for fewer padded practices and that is something he is familiar with from following how NFL practices work.
Scroll through this gallery to see his detailed plan that has a spring and fall season from his Big Ten point of view, or click this link for larger views.
The short version in bullet point form.
- Eight-game season starting on February 27 – April 17.
- One padded practice a week.
- Division games, one crossover rival and one crossover game based on the order of finish.
- Postseason May 1 – May 15. Playoff and bowl games.
- 10 game fall season Oct. 2 – Dec. 11 with training camp a month prior.
Go through the entire article and the gallery to get a full idea of this plan because what coach Brohm has put forward makes a lot of sense.
UP NEXT: Condensed Season
Condensed Season
This follows the Jeff Brohm plan for the Mountain West but with a seven-game schedule with five division games and then match up the order of finish between Mountain and West teams.
So, first place from each division down to sixth would play each other for one more game and determine a conference championship, and then go down second place vs. second and so on for that one final game.
This plan would mean that the athletes would have to be on campus and contained with enough testing but that can be very costly for these Mountain West teams.
To help reduce costs with testing perhaps spreading out the games out and play them every other week to allow for recovery time and/or quarantine if players test positive. A seven-game season could be played starting on Jan. 26 and finish April. 17. Perhaps do some Thursday or Friday games to extend the playing window out between games.
This would be enough games to satisfy for a season and with spreading games out players can recover more and combined that with limited padded practices anyways it could help limit all the grind of playing football.
The NFL would need to help out a bit for the combine and the post-season All-Star games, plus the NFL Draft. Those are all moveable and it would benefit them as well to see live game action for the prospects that are NFL-worthy.
Up Next: Mountain West vegas Bubble
Mountain West Vegas Bubble
There are enough hotel rooms in Las Vegas and this also would take some help from the Las Vegas Raiders. Create a two-week season with two games a day Monday through Saturday.
Imagine having Mountain West football do a doubleheader at 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. PT through the week. One game on CBS Sports Network and one game on FS1 and maybe the Saturday games on CBS and FOX.
This would have these athletes miss minimal class time with this being a two-week season and it would allow for the teams to bubble in the many hotels in Las Vegas and be able to be by themselves.
Playing two games is not ideal at all and this would be in a scenario in which COVID-19 is still causing issues, but with this being just being about a three-week total endeavor — one week to quarantine and practice — the dates could be flexible for when games can be played. If things improve perhaps fans could come to town and watch their team.
To create a schedule we could go with two rivals but that is for another scenario. The preseason media preseason poll could pit the placement of each division to play each other for the second week of games.
For example, this slate of games would be.
- No. 1 Boise State vs. San Diego State
- No. 2 Wyoming vs. Nevada
- No. 3 Air Force vs. Wyoming
- No. 4 Utah State vs. Fresno State
- No. 5 Colorado State vs. San Jose State
- No. 6 New Mexico vs. UNLV
The first week could be some random draw as long as it is not a repeat for the second week.
This also would give plenty of time for the NFL workouts, combine, All-Star bowl games and the NFL Draft.
Up Next: ONCE A MONTH GAMES
Once A Month Games
This one is pretty straight forward where teams play once a month. From January to April, so each team gets one game. This is similar to the seven-game schedule but more time in between and very little contact since this is not anywhere close to a full season.
To make this interesting the Mountain West could do a made-for-TV event and do a schedule draft. Coaches really hate giving bulletin board material but this idea would create so much it would be great.
The way this could work and be interesting would be for a random order and do a snake-style draft, similar to a traditional fantasy football. There would be ping pong balls or some randomizer to make the picks, however, to make things juicy, teams will be able to veto two choices but if they veto they go to the end of the round and get whatever team is left. The draft order does not change for the following rounds.
Also, any given school could only veto the same opponent one time, so if a team has vetoed a school and they come back up again on the schedule they still have to play them even with a veto in their back pocket.
This would provide some real drama and new heat between teams if there is a veto and then things would get really interesting if those teams actually have to play each other.
Also, with games once a month the schedule could be set up to have games basically every weekend in the winter and spring months.
Up Next: RIVALS ONLY
Rivals Only
This would mimic the Las Vegas bubble idea with just two games but these would be on-campus matchups. If we are very optimistic then maybe there could be fans in the stands.
This way could also have some sort of staggered start so that games can be spread out with warmer home games in February and then have games when it gets a bit more bearable in March and April to finish up this season.
These are not perfect as some teams have three rivalries, some have one and according to Wikipedia — the truth-teller of them all — New Mexico has no Mountain West rivalries.
Air Force: Colorado State, Utah State
Boise State: Fresno State, Nevada
Colorado State: Air Force, Wyoming
Fresno State: Boise State, San Diego State
Hawaii: New Mexico, San Jose State
New Mexico: UNLV, Hawaii
Nevada: UNLV, Boise State
UNLV: Nevada, New Mexico
San Diego State: Fresno State, San Jose State
San Jose State: San Diego State, Hawaii
Utah State: Air Force, Wyoming
Wyoming: Utah State, Colorado State
