STILLWATER – Oklahoma State will start the third week of spring football on Tuesday (April 6) with three more practices this week. The spring game for the Cowboys, which head coach Mike Gundy has said will offer an hour-long practice sequence that will include inside drill, seven-on-seven, and some one-on-one with wide receivers and defensive secondary. Gundy said they will then have a full two quarters, 15 minutes regulation and regular timing procedure. You will get a half of a game promised with all the regular situations including special teams.
The Cowboys can do that this spring thanks to having 112-players plus in spring practice. The extra numbers come from super seniors that are back for a bonus season, a healthy and talented abundance of walk-ons, and some early arrivals for the 2021 recruiting class in the form of both freshmen and transfers.
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Gundy thinks he’d like the view of an outside scrimmage.
However, Gundy’s concerns when they get to April 24 and the spring game inside Boone Pickens Stadium will be the same as any coach. They want to minimize injuries and when you have a spring game all 22 players on the field in any situation are yours. Any injury is one of your players getting hurt, and hopefully not serious.
For close to 20-years now I’ve been proposing that the NCAA allow Division I teams in the spring to schedule one scrimmage, spring game, or simply a practice day with another Division I team. This spring because of COVID-19 the Division I FCS schools, Division II, Division III, and NJCAA junior college programs are playing games.
This past weekend East Central in Oklahoma played at Tarleton State, an NCAA Division I FCS program and NEO A&M Junior College hosted Kilgore Junior College. These are real football games being played in the spring because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Why can’t two Division I teams get together in the spring for a practice that would really allow them to improve?
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One of Gundy’s examples for a spring practice partner was Nebraska.
“It would be good for us to scrimmage Arkansas, you’ve got Nebraska, you’ve got (Texas) A&M,” Gundy said using three examples. “There’s some teams around that it would be good to have a spring game or spring scrimmage, do like the NFL and have some inside (drill), do some seven on, do some team. I would be for that just from a numbers standpoint.”
Another team means that on any given play each team only has half the number of players exposed to injury. Outside competition gives you a whole different level of potential improvement. There is a reason that the NFL does it during training camp.
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Another suggested opponent for spring was Texas A&M.
“What happens in the spring is on most years we don’t have enough depth to have a real good spring game, so the reason we haven’t had one in awhile is I don’t think it is favorable for the fans because you don’t have enough depth and you can’t really function. If you were to play a game against Arkansas, Nebraska, A&M or somebody and practice game then you could get really quality work.”
It’s neat to think about. You wouldn’t want to play anybody coming up on your schedule, so North Texas, SMU, Texas State, Houston, Rice, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Arkansas State, LSU, Tulane, Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, Texas-El Paso, are all schools in the region that could fit.
“I would be for that in short notice without really thinking through it,” Gundy concluded.
I’ve thought through it for 20-years and I still can’t find a reason not to do it. You could sell tickets and have both teams split the money and that would pay for expenses for sure and probably a few more items. Get television involved and even more money could be derived from it.
The most important aspect is that it becomes a tool to help your football team improve.