USA Explains Scheduling of Spring Game

Last week, I used this space to criticize USA’s decision to schedule this year’s spring football game on a Wednesday night.

This week, I spoke with South Alabama Athletic Director Dr. Joel Erdmann and Head Football Coach Joey Jones to find out the reasoning for the peculiar scheduling.

This is a “shoot first, ask questions later” method of journalism that I don’t normally condone, but in this case, it worked out OK.

From my conversations with Erdmann and Jones, I learned that there are two options: 1) have spring practice before Spring Break or 2) have spring practice after Spring Break. (Jones explained that an NCAA rule limiting spring practice to 30 days would not allow him to split practice up before and after Spring Break.)

Because USA opted to have spring practice before Spring Break, that meant practice would be coming to an end this week and the game would need to be scheduled sometime around this week. And basically, the game HAD to be scheduled on Wednesday night, because the basketball conference tournament was this past weekend (Saturday-Tuesday), Spring Break begins this coming weekend, and there is a Distinguished Alumni Awards Dinner Thursday night.

“We decided Wednesday night would be our best bet from all the options we looked at,” Jones said. “It wasn’t ideal not being a weekend, but we’ll still take it.”

“We don’t prefer to do it on a Wednesday night,” Erdmann said, “but it just kind of happened that it had to land there this year.”

Some fans thought USA should have held spring practice after Spring Break, which would allow the spring game to avoid all these scheduling conflicts and potentially be played on a Saturday.

But Jones and Erdmann cited several reasons for having practice before Spring Break, including weather concerns, to allow more time to rehabilitate injuries, and to allow more time for strength and conditioning.

Despite the conflicts with this year’s scheduling, they tried to pick the most accommodating date possible.

“Unfortunately, we’re going head-to-head with our own softball and baseball programs,” Erdmann said, “but it was almost unavoidable.”

“In spring, you’re going to have conflicts with somebody no matter what day you choose,” Jones said. “You just have to try to find a date that’s good for as many people as possible.”

While they pointed out that the Thursday night game during the first season had the second-highest attendance of all the games and they predicted that this year’s spring game would be a success, they pledged to try to avoid a weekday in the future.

“We’ll evaluate it next year and try to time this up a little better,” Jones said.

“We would prefer to play on a Saturday and will make every effort to do so as we move forward,” Erdmann said.

When asked how they will avoid this problem if the same issues occur next year, Erdmann said they would consider scheduling the game the first Saturday of Spring Break, though he admitted this too was problematic since many students will have left campus.

“In a perfect world, we will be able to play on a Saturday where there will be no conflict,” Erdmann said. “We’ll judge by the response to this Wednesday night game, and we’ll try to avoid these issues the best we can in the future.”

Having heard their reasons, I understand why the game is scheduled this Wednesday, but I stand by my opinion from last week’s column that USA mishandled a great opportunity. A Saturday spring game would have served as a perfect springboard into USA football’s second season.

I think if it appears this will be a problem in the future, then USA should look at having spring practice after Spring Break, like many other programs do. But I’ve never been in charge of a football program. Erdmann and Jones have. Perhaps we should trust that they will make the right decisions to get USA football to where we all hope it can go.