Why Utah is playing its spring game as other programs cancel – Deseret News

Across the country, some college football teams have canceled spring games, citing reasons from injury risk to concerns over the transfer portal and other teams picking off talent that performs well in the spring game.

Nebraska kicked off the trend, canceling its spring game in February. More programs like Michigan State, NC State, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas and USC followed.

In Utah, BYU won’t have a spring game and Utah State will forgo the tradition this season.

“My primary intent is both to protect and retain our current roster and to keep our schemes and strategies unknown from our opponents for as long as possible,” USU coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “I look forward to connecting with Aggie Nation this fall as we wrap up fall camp.”

Utah — which has become more secretive, especially in regards to injury information, in the past decade — isn’t joining those programs, forging ahead with plans for the annual “22 Forever” spring game at Rice-Eccles Stadium on April 19.

“You can’t be scared to do everything. We got to get guys better. That’s our No. 1 objective. And there’s a lot of guys in this program right now that could use this spring game to get better,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said.

Whittingham said that fans won’t see a lot of starter-level players in the spring game, with the program instead using the scrimmage to continue to develop the younger players.

The format of the game may also be changed.

“It may not be a game format as far as a Red-White (game), might be offense versus defense. You maybe have to modify, but it’s going to be a valuable opportunity for a lot of our guys,” Whittingham said.

The Utah football staff had conversations about whether or not to go ahead with the spring game, but ultimately decides it was still valuable for the program.

“We still got…

Source link : https://www.deseret.com/sports/2025/04/08/why-utah-is-still-holding-spring-football-game/

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Publish date : 2025-04-09 01:31:00

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