MORGANTOWN — It was a day at West Virginia’s spring camp without a whole lot of real news.
Brandon Hogan, the cornerback who was cited over the weekend for public urination, returned to practice and Coach Bill Stewart talked of the way his discipline is being handled.
“It’s being handled by me with Brandon and you can be pleased you’re not Brandon,” Stewart said.
And there was a bit of revelation from Stewart that his starting quarterback, Geno Smith, who has been kept out of full drills with a foot injury, may get the foot padded up well enough that he can take part in some plays during the April 30 night spring game, something that could keep his backup, Coley White, from having to take a full 100 plays for both sides in the scrimmage.
While that is hardly stop the presses stuff, it does lead into an interesting discussion of spring football in general, for after watching what is passing as practice at WVU this year you wonder if they are really getting much from it.
The starting quarterback can’t take part full time. There are any number of players on a daily basis in red jerseys, meaning they cannot take part in practice and many others in green, whose practice is limited.
There is a shortage of wide receivers and of quarterbacks, which limits the passing game.
Of course, the freshmen recruits are not yet here either.
That led to a discussion after practice about the validity of practice in the spring and if it would not, in fact, be better for the NCAA to do away with spring practice and, instead, add summer practice in July.
As things stand now, practice begins in early August and you are allowed 29 practices before the season begins.
Why not start in mid-July and have 43 or 44 practices?
Think about it for a moment.
Players who have offseason surgery — and there are many of them —would have longer to heal.
Scooter Berry, the senior defensive tackle, for example, is not practicing this year. Reed Williams missed a couple of spring with shoulder surgery.
By the middle of July, however, they might be ready to play.
What’s more, freshmen now miss the spring but if you would allow the practices to begin in July they could have an extra 14 or more practices to be assimilated into the team, to learn the system.
Stewart, when approached with the idea, admitted that “it has merit.”
The problem, he noted, is that “it would be like the pros” and that there is a conflict with summer school.
The first part of that isn’t much of a problem. There is nothing wrong with being like the pros.
As for a conflict with summer school, it seems that during the regular season there is a conflict with school and no one seems to give a hoot.
Come to think of it, school is going on during spring practice and players are often missing practice because they must attend classes.
“Spring practice is tremendous fundamentally,” Stewart said. “There’s no pressure. There’s no game to get ready for.”
While this is true, there would be no game to get ready for in July, either.
More important, you can team build in July for the freshmen would be on hand. What’s more, with those extra days, there’s no reason to have those dreaded two-a-days as you would have extra time to get workouts in and to get in shape.
As things stand now, spring practice ends with the annual spring game. On some campuses, this is a huge thing with upwards of 30,000 people showing up. Some schools, therefore, would be losing a pay day, others who donate to charity would give that up in the spring.
But who’s to say you couldn’t have it in the summer.
What’s more, the NCAA could even fulfill Stewart’s biggest wish.
“I would love to have a scrimmage game against another school,” Stewart said.
Why not, as July turns into August, allow that scrimmage game, be it against a Division II or I-AA team or even against a Division I team? At WVU, if they wanted, they could turn that money over to Children’s Hospital as they do with the spring game money.
It would probably do better than a normal intra-squad scrimmage would do.
There are, of course, arguments against making the change, the biggest argument being that if someone were to be injured he might not have time to heal, but injuries happen in August, too. One year WVU record-setting wide receiver David Saunders went down with a knee injury and missed the year, but that’s football.
Then there’s the argument that veteran coach Bill Kirelawich made, that being that more is gained in the spring than in the fall and that this year is strange, that it’s the first spring he remembers in 33 years of having to go without a quarterback.
“And besides,” Kirelawich said, “when would we vacation? If we go to starting practice in the middle of July, I’m retiring.”
The man has a point.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
