2025 Spring Practice Thread

NDPhilly

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From a $$$ Perspective, which obviously runs the sport, a spring game between two premier programs would get great ratings, even if the starters only play half a game.
 

Dale

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I can see the possible benefit to a middling Big 12 school and would find some entertainment in it. I don’t see the benefit for Notre Dame

“They're fighting for clicks, we're fighting for wins. There’s a difference”

- Dan Lanning
 

NDPhilly

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Hopefully Tae or Blair make some big offseason strides - don’t love the idea of Talich or Urlacher being an injury away from starting.
 

Polish Leppy 22

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I can see the possible benefit to a middling Big 12 school and would find some entertainment in it. I don’t see the benefit for Notre Dame

“They're fighting for clicks, we're fighting for wins. There’s a difference”

- Dan Lanning
Benefits:

1) Teams can do 1's vs 1's and 2's vs 2's, so it's better for coaches in evaluation and minimizes risk of injury because you aren't running a scrimmage with your whole team playing offense vs defense for 100 snaps.

2) It likely wouldn't be a "game" if you ask me, but a scrimmage where the coaches control format, snaps, possessions, etc. Playing high school ball in PA, our two scrimmages were always ten plays on offense, ten on defense, same for the 2's, and maybe a quarter of game situation. Plenty of options here.

3) Beating up on people with a different uniform on

4) You can sit as many starters as you want to for rest

5) Get your true freshmen on campus a little taste of college ball

It's absolutely bonkers that college football is the only sport where there's no preseason/ exhibition games. I would even take it a step further and allow teams (if they want to) to schedule a home and home each year. One scrimmage at home in the spring, one scrimmage away in the summer. Don't even have to go live. Could just do a solid thud or 7 on 7 if you're in the Big 12.
 

Irish8248

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Generally speaking, you start to grow into the player you'll become during soph year, become that player Jr year, and own that player type your Sr year.

We just went down memory lane in awe of the richest safety in nfl history and his 12 yr career, give or take... many forget he was an out of place LB, who was lost, and being buried on a depth chart before his move to safety. We all rolled our eyes when he was named starter with McCarthy until he got on the field and flashed Soph yr. Jr. year he got comfortable, took charge and Sr year he was a maniac. He was every where.

It's rare for D1 kids to be instant impact players. Most need time to marinate, find their footing, gain confidence and comfort, while growing into their next level. Opportunity and timing also help. We're not depleted at S like we were in 07-11
 

IRISHbluehen

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Full jersey scrimmage open to media on April 5th, should get some good tidbits that day at least. Would be nice if we still had a program insider to feed my information addiction 😭😭
 

Some Irish Bloke

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I can see the possible benefit to a middling Big 12 school and would find some entertainment in it. I don’t see the benefit for Notre Dame

“They're fighting for clicks, we're fighting for wins. There’s a difference”

- Dan Lanning
This. It benefits fans. Not players. I bet the same guys who are saying "this is a great idea" would change the tune really quick the moment a key starter or backup gets injured in a meaningless scrimmage.

Benefits:

1) Teams can do 1's vs 1's and 2's vs 2's, so it's better for coaches in evaluation and minimizes risk of injury because you aren't running a scrimmage with your whole team playing offense vs defense for 100 snaps.

2) It likely wouldn't be a "game" if you ask me, but a scrimmage where the coaches control format, snaps, possessions, etc. Playing high school ball in PA, our two scrimmages were always ten plays on offense, ten on defense, same for the 2's, and maybe a quarter of game situation. Plenty of options here.

3) Beating up on people with a different uniform on

4) You can sit as many starters as you want to for rest

5) Get your true freshmen on campus a little taste of college ball

It's absolutely bonkers that college football is the only sport where there's no preseason/ exhibition games. I would even take it a step further and allow teams (if they want to) to schedule a home and home each year. One scrimmage at home in the spring, one scrimmage away in the summer. Don't even have to go live. Could just do a solid thud or 7 on 7 if you're in the Big 12.
You see the training camp joint-practices in the NFL that get heated all of the time. I really don't see the point of this. We all miss football by the time spring rolls around. No reason to turn what is supposed to be a meaningless scrimmage into a slightly more meaningful scrimmage with tons more risk and logistics involved, IMO.

The Spring game isn't really supposed to be a meaningful event for anybody except for the players getting some practice reps in, getting EEs acclimated, kicking of some positional battles, etc. Honestly, how would a scrimmage against Sparty or Wisconsin help us get closer to winning a natty?

Makes way more sense to scrap the whole thing beyond practices, and to let players with lingering injuries heal, than try to make it into an even bigger hoopla.
 
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rtrn2glory

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Does anybody know if the pro Day will be on demand on peacock when it's over? I'm not going to be able to watch it until later
 

Polish Leppy 22

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This. It benefits fans. Not players. I bet the same guys who are saying "this is a great idea" would change the tune really quick the moment a key starter or backup gets injured in a meaningless scrimmage.


You see the training camp joint-practices in the NFL that get heated all of the time. I really don't see the point of this. We all miss football by the time spring rolls around. No reason to turn what is supposed to be a meaningless scrimmage into a slightly more meaningful scrimmage with tons more risk and logistics involved, IMO.

The Spring game isn't really supposed to be a meaningful event for anybody except for the players getting some practice reps in, getting EEs acclimated, kicking of some positional battles, etc. Honestly, how would a scrimmage against Sparty or Wisconsin help us get closer to winning a natty?

Makes way more sense to scrap the whole thing beyond practices, and to let players with lingering injuries heal, than try to make it into an even bigger hoopla.
Football is a physical game, they're all heated regardless of who's playing. A player can tear an ACL in a non contact drill any day. As mentioned above, there's LESS risk involved because you're spreading more reps out across your whole roster. Logistics are cake considering the money these D1 football programs are bringing in.

Not all that important, but the TV stations would salivate at spring scrimmages being on TV. It would draw more eyeballs than baseball, regular season basketball, and hockey. Maybe the Masters too.

My hunch is that ND's coaches would rather see (for evaluation) their #1 units go a few series against Wiscy or Sparty than the ND walk on's / backups.
 

Huntr

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Old Man Mike

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Interesting that Coach came to Sully Abshur and asked him to try center. (Abshur was semi-hilarious about this in his interview.)

Subtly this tells me that we're felt to be very well off at guard but maybe there's some room for improvement at center.

Abshur brings power. Maybe that's a missing link right now. Abshur between Jagusah and Schrauth is kind of scary.
 

Crazy Balki

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Hard to fathom there's a deeper and more talented RB room in the country, but I'm biased

I think objectively, it's the deepest, most talented RB room in the country.

Love is probably the best back in the country going into 2025. Price, Payne and Williams would all start on at least 90% of teams in the P4.
 

Crazy Balki

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not that 40 time means everything, but it's kind of crazy how underwhelming most of the 40 times are.

I'd have thought that Clark would be near the 4.5 range, yet he's in the mid 4.6's.

Harrison being near 4.6 is surprising considering that he was seen more as a burner type return specialist.

Heard at 5'10 and 4.63 is insane. Mitchell at a 4.5 flat is objectively good, but wasn't he supposed to be Fuller-esque in terms of speed, yet Fuller ran a 4.32.

All that aside, despite the underwhelming times, this defense definitely played faster than the 40 times would indicate.
 

DillonHall

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not that 40 time means everything, but it's kind of crazy how underwhelming most of the 40 times are.

I'd have thought that Clark would be near the 4.5 range, yet he's in the mid 4.6's.

Harrison being near 4.6 is surprising considering that he was seen more as a burner type return specialist.

Heard at 5'10 and 4.63 is insane. Mitchell at a 4.5 flat is objectively good, but wasn't he supposed to be Fuller-esque in terms of speed, yet Fuller ran a 4.32.

All that aside, despite the underwhelming times, this defense definitely played faster than the 40 times would indicate.
Yeah not a ton of speed or high-level individual talent on the 2024 team. Makes that team even more special
 

Plankton

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Seeing Mitchell Evans only come in at 6'3" is a surprise. I thought he was 6'5" at a minimum
 
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