Spring games: Give OSU the edge
Oklahoma State played a football game Saturday night to conclude spring practice. It wasn’t great entertainment. No kicking game to speak of. Quarterback Zac Robinson was largely off limits. Some stars, notably Spud Hunter and Dez Bryant, didn’t play.
But still, it was a football game, and it was good entertainment. It was much-needed oasis for football junkies who break out in cold sweats between the Super Bowl and September.
An Orange team and a White team. Six points for a touchdown. Three points for a field goal. Field position. Turnovers. Penalties. Good, solid football game, won 20-15 by the Orange in what amounted to about 45 minutes of a real game, since the second half was played with mostly a running clock.
A far superior product for fans than OU’s Red-White Game, which wasn’t a game at all and wasn’t even red-white. It was offense-defense. The Sooners came up with some tricked-up scoring system — points for sacks, for stops, for turnovers, for first downs. Meaningless. Texas A&M did the same for its spring game Saturday, and the score was 117-107 or something.
I know OU coaches have reasons for using the format they used, and I know that teams have number problems in which it is difficult to field two full teams for a spring scrimmage. But if OSU can do it, OU can do it.
It’s a great salute to the fans who support the program. The true game format is a nod of appreciation for those people who buy expensive tickets and sit in bad weather and cheer no matter the situation.
I know that coaches want to use some players in different combos. OU, for example, used backup quarterback Landry Jones last week with both the first- and second-team offense. Linemen were used the same. Which is fine. Just have them change jerseys. We’re not tabulating polls or producing power rankings. We’re just asking for a semblance of a game, a system which the fans can follow for two hours.
For fans, Oklahoma State got the spring game right. Oklahoma got the spring game wrong.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Meant to add–I think having a game–the way OSU did it–is much better for the fans than the incomprehensible system that OU uses.
But I’m pretty sure that Bob Stoops doesn’t give a rip what I think.
It’s about getting better, not entertaining the fans. That’s why it’s only 5 or 10 dollars to watch (OU)instead of $70.
The spring game is for the coaching staff not the fans. Who cares how the scoring system is done?!?
Berry – Get a clue and realize that the spring game is full of things that make no sense to the fans other than saying you were there. If you remember the 2008 spring game, you and everyone else was questioning the no-huddle offense Kevin Wilson was installing. Seemed to work pretty well during the season. It made OSU’s defense look like a junior high squad.
The spring game is whatever the coach wants it to be. If it is intended to be a true practice session then a coach would probably care less what the fans thought. If it is designed “for the fans” then a format that was fan freindly would be the most logical way to go.
I doubt true fans of the teams care a great deal either way. 90% are there to support the teams. Arm-chair coaches might like to see a spring-game that looks more like the real deal.
And Jason, the no-huddle is not a Kevin wilson product, even at ou, and hardly new to the big12. (you might check and see which big12 team first introduced the no-huddle) And I’m pretty sure the no-huddle made ou look like a junior high squad in their final game.
Hmmmmm.
The sound of crickets chirping.
Something tells me that if Berry had said that OU got it right, and OSU got it wrong, Poke fans would have been all over it.
But this doesn’t fit the “Oklahoman owns OU (or vice-versa)” mind-set, so we get silence. Total, blissful, silence. . . .