Sorry, fans.
Welcome to spring practice! Spring is canceled. Er, the spring game is canceled, excuse me.
Every NC State spring practice will be closed to the public and they won’t be televised.
Dave Doeren said with two new coordinators, they don’t want their stuff “out there.”
This means no spring football game.
— Jadyn Watson-Fisher (@jwatsonfisher) February 25, 2025
This level of football paranoia will always be silly to me—it’s not like teams can’t or don’t roll out the most vanilla looks possible during these scrimmages—but this seems to be the way the sport is trending.
NC State is just one of several programs that are forgoing a spring game this year, and coaches have used a wide variety of justifications for this. FSU head coach Mike Norvell’s remarks may get to the heart of it: he doesn’t think the game is the most productive use of a practice day.
And I’m sure that’s true, but these games have always been great for fans, who can get up-close looks at their team that might not be available to them otherwise. Being able to stroll into Carter-Finley and get a seat right near field level is part of the appeal for me, anyway.
But so it goes. Most of the changes made to the sport over the last decade have been bad for the fan experience, so why not throw one more on the pile.