CLEMSON — Colorado coach Deion Sanders wants to make robust changes to spring football games, switching the intrasquad scrimmage to days of joint practices with another program that leads into an exhibition game.
Not only did Syracuse coach Fran Brown support this idea, but Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney agreed, having championed the idea for more than a decade.
“‘Y’all can probably rewind every spring practice for the past 12 years, and I think I’ve said that for years and years and years,” Swinney said Wednesday after Clemson‘s second spring scrimmage. “It’s never made any sense to me from pee wee league to middle school to high school, we are the only level of football, to the NFL, and we don’t get to practice against anybody. We can’t scrimmage anybody. I’ve never understood that.”
Swinney added football is the “only sport in college” that can’t practice with other teams, mentioning how baseball, soccer and basketball can schedule scrimmages with other programs.
Spring game changes arose this offseason as prominent Power Four programs, including Nebraska, Texas, Ohio State and Southern California, have canceled or altered theirs, citing the issue of tampering.
Clemson will host its spring game on April 5 (1 p.m. ET) at Memorial Stadium. Still, Swinney would change the annual exhibition if his team had joint practices or preseason games like the NFL, as opposed to its first game being against LSU on Aug. 30.
He sees many advantages with these changes, saying it would allow his players to get a fresh taste of new opponents in different situational work instead of only facing their teammates.
From a coaching perspective, Swinney said it would allow him and his staff to evaluate 11 players at a time instead of all 22. It also would spice up the current monotonous spring game format, where projected starters rarely play and reserves battle each other at a less-than-full capacity stadium.
“Y’all think we could get 50-plus thousand people to show up and see the Tigers play a preseason game in August? I guarantee you we could,” Swinney said.
Why Clemson football, Dabo Swinney didn’t cancel spring game
Swinney said in February he had no conversations about canceling Clemson’s spring game. He added the spring game allows his freshmen and new additions to get the full game-day experience at Memorial Stadium in a game-like environment for the first time in the offseason instead of in the regular season.
“I look at our scrimmage as an opportunity to expose your guys, teach them,” Swinney said. “I don’t know how you get better.”
Clemson’s annual spring game this year will be altered, though. The friendly exhibition won’t be broadcast live; the only way to watch it is to attend in person for free. Clemson will have a live audio broadcast available and produce an hour-long spring football special that will provide an “inside look at the program,” which will air on ACC Network.
Swinney added Wednesday the spring game may not reflect a typical game presentation. He said his team may have 7-on-7 competition and a offensive lineman versus defensive lineman clash before hopping into the scrimmage.
Swinney is optimistic about fan turnout for this year’s exhibition because it isn’t airing live. Last spring, about 47,000 fans were at the 81,000-capacity stadium. The spring game’s lengthy run time likely will be reduced, too, without the broadcast.
Swinney said tampering concerns weren’t a reason for the format change.
“You can’t run from that stuff,” he said. “People tamper, they tamper. Kids want to leave, they can leave.”
Derrian Carter covers Clemson athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at dcarter@gannett.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DerrianCarter00
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