NCAAF News: Notre Dame HC Marcus Freeman makes major admission about controversy surrounding Spring Games

There has been a lot of discussion in recent weeks about those programs that have expressed both support and opposition to playing in the Spring Games in NCAAF. Marcus Freeman, head coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, made his stance clear regarding this controversy.

In a recent press conference where the successful head coach of the Fighting Irish spoke with the media, he stated that his program will participate in these events, considering them to be good preparation for what lies ahead.

“We moved spring back,” Marcus Freeman said. “I think when I first put our spring practice calendar, it was last year sometime, when we decided when the Spring Game was going to be. So, I decided after the season that we had to move Spring practice about two weeks.

“The reality is I did not want to cheat strength and conditioning phase or the development phase of our team. I think it’s really important and there was an integration of different guys based on how many plays they played last year in terms of when they started that strength and conditioning phase. So, that’s why I decided to push it back two weeks to get started.”

Head coach Marcus Freeman of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish celebrates with his team after defeating the Penn State Nittany Lions 27-24 in the Capital One Orange Bowl at Hard Rock Stadium on January 09, 2025 in Miami Gardens, Florida.

“We will have a Spring Game. It will be a version of a Spring Game. Again, it’s important to me to use that as an opportunity one to let our players perform in front of our fans but two, it’s a chance to really integrate our community and our fans with this football program. I think it’s so important to me is to give the opportunity to fans that maybe typically don’t get the opportunity to come to a Notre Dame game or, if they do, to give them another opportunity to come and engage with our players,” Freeman also added.

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“I don’t want to take away from that. There’s a lot of pros and cons for each decision, but that one, to me — my decision of keeping our Spring Game was I want to use this opportunity for our team and our football program to make sure that we are really interacting with our fans.”

Sarkisian announced that the Longhorns are opting out

One of the authoritative voices in College Football debates is undoubtedly Steve Sarkisian. Contrary to the stance taken by the Fighting Irish or the Ducks, for example, the Texas Longhorns are not jumping on the Spring Games bandwagon.

“No, we’re not going to have a spring game,” coach Sark said. “A couple of reasons why. Over the last two years, we’ve played 30 games. That’s a lot for college football. Fourteen two years ago, 16 this year. I just mentioned, we’ve had 25 guys get invited to the NFL Combine the last two years, so we have a lot of young players on our roster. We have 21 mid-year high school kids that just showed up.

“The development that’s needed for these guys need to get ready for the fall is a little bit different than it used to be. Our approach is going to be a little more NFL driven, kind of more of an OTA style early on as we grow into more of the scrimmage formats in the second half of spring ball. I just don’t know (if) rolling the ball out and playing the game when we only get 15 practices is the best for us to maximize the opportunities that we get. It’s going to be a little bit of a different approach, but I think college football is changing right now. We need to do a great job as coaches of adapting to college football. That’s what we’re trying to do, and I think that’s going to be good for our team.”