football phenomenon

[Eric the Red]

Spring football phenomenon spreading

 

By BLAIR KERKHOFF

The Kansas City Star

K-State defense promises to improve over past two years

Just like the good old days, Huskers come out running

Mizzou's Coffman catches lots of attention

LINCOLN, Neb. — Lines to enter the stadium snaked out and around the corner. Hundreds queued up for tickets. Others waited for their turn to buy Husker Burgers and Fairbury Franks.

 

Fans even stood in line for that credit card game, sign up for a card and receive a prize. Today’s offering: A Husker blanket.

 

Little girls dressed in Nebraska cheerleader outfits, little boys wore helmets and carried small footballs, everybody donned the requisite red gear. “Restore the Order” T-shirts were popular items.

 

It’s two hours before the start of … practice.

 

Nobody does spring football quite like Nebraska, where 57,415 clicked the turnstiles Saturday for the annual Red-White game.

 

“No place in the country has this,” Nebraska linebacker Steve Octavien said. “It’s a game atmosphere to us.”

 

Other schools are beginning to catch spring fever.

 

Attendance for spring games around the Big 12 is up. More than 9,400 attended Missouri’s Black & Gold game Saturday, and about 5,200 came to Kansas’ blue-white game on Friday night. Good weather led to bigger-than-usual crowds at both schools.

 

Texas drew 41,000 to its spring game earlier this month. Texas A&M had 31,000.

 

ESPN has gotten into the act, taking its crew to a different destination every weekend, including Oklahoma.

 

But Nebraska’s in a different league when it comes to spring turnout.

 

Saturday, the North end zone seats were unavailable due to construction. For the first time, school administrators were concerned they might have to turn away fans.

 

“Fortunately, that didn’t happen,” Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson said. “But we were over capacity. We ended up selling standing room only.”

 

Fans seemed content to stand, just to be in the stadium watching their beloved Cornhuskers in action. The game attracts thousands who don’t own season tickets and rarely get to see a game in person.

 

They were out in force on Saturday, and afterwards they left with pieces of their day, collecting stacks of stadium cups and snapping photographs with the emptying stadium as the backdrop. “Now, one with you and your sister.”

 

Five-year-old Nichole Daharsh, in her cheerleader outfit, got to pose with the Nebraska cheer squad.

 

“This is a great day for us,” said Nichole’s dad, Steve Daharsh, who came with his wife, Rose, from Wahoo, Neb. “A regular game would be an expensive day for us, if we could get tickets.”

 

Arthur Cumnock is the James Naismith of spring football.

 

Or maybe it’s the other way around because Cumnock first led Harvard in spring drills in 1889 — two years before Naismith had the peach basket hung.

 

A mere two decades after Princeton and Rutgers scrummed around and got credit for playing the first football game, Cumnock, described in school literature as “a zealous Harvard captain,” had to give the Crimson an edge over Yale.

 

And to think, when Harvard and Yale helped form the Ivy League in 1956, the conference banned extended spring football practice until 1994. Until then, one day was allowed and some schools used it to toss Frisbees.

 

Notre Dame and Michigan apparently couldn’t get the 1888 season started quickly enough. They played games on April 20 and April 21 in South Bend with Michigan winning both.

 

Spring football has been part of the college landscape in various degrees since and for decades it existed outside the sporting conscious and the NCAA’s watchful eye.

 

Bear Bryant’s teams at Alabama conducted daily drills for nearly three months. Outside the norm? Not at all, and not at Kansas.

 

“When I came back from the war, we’d start practice when the snow melted and didn’t stop until school was out,” said former Jayhawks player and coach Don Fambrough. “Three hours every day. We put the pads on the first day and kept them on the entire time.”

 

No time in weight room, either.

 

“It was one of two things you weren’t allowed to do,” Fambrough said.

 

“Lifting weight made you muscle bound.”

 

The other thing?

 

“Couldn’t swim. That made the muscles soft.

 

“And if you hurt your knee they put heat on it instead of cold. It’s a wonder we didn’t all die of blood clots.”

 

Spring practice was where Bud Wilkinson decided he wanted to become a coach.

 

It was 1946, and Wilkinson was working in the mortgage business with his father in Minneapolis when Oklahoma coach Jim Tatum asked him to come to Norman to help with spring practice.

 

There, working with a team that would eventually win a national championship, Wilkinson decided he wanted to coach full-time, and he started his legendary career as the Sooners head coach in 1947.

 

Eventually, the NCAA laid down the law. Twenty spring practices over a 36-day period in 1991. Then came a report in 1996 that cited more injuries suffered in spring football workouts than 16 other sports sampled.

 

Some players would curse the spring. Kansas safety Rodney Harris suffered a neck injury during a drill last month. He won’t play this season and his career is probably over.

 

Today, teams have 29 days to get in 15 practices, with a maximum of 12 that can include contact. None of the contact workouts can come before the third day. During non-contact practices, helmets are the only protective gear allowed.

 

“All those rules, you need a Harvard lawyer to keep up with all of it,” Fambrough said. “But, it’s a better setup than it used to be.”

 

Spring football gate receipts don’t add much to an athletic department’s bottom line, not at schools with athletic budgets that run in the tens of millions of dollars.

 

“This is not a revenue-producing event,” Kansas State athletic director Tim Weiser said.

 

But follow the bouncing football to see how a successful spring weekend can lead to greater rewards.

 

Kansas State’s Purple and White game next Saturday evening is the crescendo of a series of events that begins Friday morning with a golf tournament at Colbert Hills and continues that evening with Powercat Auction, an annual event where road trips with teams are up for bids.

 

A barbecue challenge — blessed by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as the state’s official barbecue championship — opens Saturday’s festivities that include a carnival, fan festival and battle of the bands. Kansas State plays host to Kansas in a baseball game at 2 p.m.

 

And, oh yes, the football game at 6 p.m.

 

“The focus is to bring everybody to town and make this a destination weekend,” said K-State associate athletic director Laura Tietjen. “If you’re a K-Stater we want you to put this on your calendar every year.”

 

And if you’re a high school junior with some football talent and ambition, the Wildcats wouldn’t mind you stopping by. It’s an unofficial recruiting weekend — prospects must pay their own way — for K-State, with as many as 150 juniors expected to watch the game.

 

“Absolutely, from a recruiting standpoint we’re trying to put our best foot forward,” Weiser said.

 

The goal at Manhattan next weekend: 20,000 fans. It will have helped that the Wildcats’ ticket office stuck a spring football pass in the season ticket package.

 

Nebraska welcomed 80 recruits on Saturday, which brought back memories for defensive tackle Barry Cryer. As a Dodge City Community College sophomore, he visited Lincoln during the spring game two years and couldn’t believe what he saw.

 

“My first impression was I couldn’t believe these fans,” Cryer said. “The game was over, and those fans were still here. Nobody left. I made up my mind to come here right there and then.”

 

Missouri and Kansas have increased the activity level in recent seasons.

 

In Columbia on Saturday, the school held its annual garage sale from its team store at Faurot Field, and as a bonus, record-setting quarterback Brad Smith held an autograph session before the game.

 

The line was more than 200 deep, and 4-year-old Canton Post from Springfield, Mo., waited for more than an hour with his dad, John, to see Smith up close. Signed mini-poster in hand, Canton left satisfied.

 

“Cool,” Canton said as he and his dad wandered the North stadium concourse on the way to see Truman the Tiger and the Golden Girls.

 

Missouri holds a former player’s reunion around its spring weekend, and more than 500 attended this year. Coach Gary Pinkel met them in the press box before the game.

 

“Five years ago we had about 140 people — players and family — here,” Pinkel said.

 

Kansas played under the lights for the first time and didn’t charge admission. Among the fans was Jim Sanders of Lenexa. His home-made Mark Mangino mask was a dead-ringer for the coach.

 

“It’s one of a kind,” Sanders said.

 

And the value of spring football is … depends. In some cases, the experience of 15 practices is immeasurable. Kansas State quarterback Josh Freeman, who could be spending this semester at Grandview High, is getting reps in practice instead.

 

Kansas quarterback Kerry Meier firmed up his starting role with a sharp performance on Friday. Missouri tight end Chase Coffman had an all-conference type performance with six receptions for 66 yards and a touchdown on Saturday.

 

Defending national champion Texas, which concluded its spring workouts earlier this month, also worked in a quarterback who enrolled after the first semester of his high school senior year.

 

Jevan Snead gave the Longhorns a second scholarship quarterback for the spring. He shared time with Colt McCoy, and they’ll continue their competition in the fall to replace Vince Young.

 

“It would have put way too much pressure on Colt,” Texas coach Mack Brown said. “This way, there was a safety net with each of them. They have someone else to help them through the difficult situation of playing quarterback at Texas and following Vince Young.”

 

At its most practical, spring practice provides a depth chart for the month-long preseason workouts in late summer. At its least effective, spring can be deceiving.

 

On the first snap of the first spring game under Bill Callahan, Nebraska sent several players in motion and quarterback Joe Dailey unloaded a deep pass that fell incomplete. No matter, the moment struck a chord in Memorial Stadium and more than 50,000 rose in ovation.

 

Dailey went on to set several “spring game passing records,” and fans left that day believing transition to the new West Coast offense would be smooth.

 

The same fans felt hoodwinked when the Cornhuskers finished the season with their first losing record in four decades. The maligned Dailey transferred to North Carolina.

 

At Oklahoma, running back Jerad Estus always seemed to be one of the Sooners’ top performers in spring workouts and scrimmages from 2001-2003. But he rarely found his way on the field in the fall.

 

Nothing fooled the followers quite like Oklahoma’s 1998 spring practice. The Sooners used the time to return to their option roots behind quarterback Brandon Daniels, who averaged 16 yards per carry in scrimmages and scored three touchdowns in the spring game.

 

But the attack fizzled once the season started, and coach John Blake lost his job at the end of the year.

 

If it were up to coaches, practice would never end.

 

“As a coach, I’d like 40 practices,” Mangino said. “But I’d say the 15 practices, that’s just about right.”

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mike DeArmond, Howard Richman and Jason King also contributed to this story. To reach Blair Kerkhoff, college sports reporter for The Star, call (816) 234-4730 or send e-mail to bkerkhoff@kcstar.com

[Eric the Red]

Fans even stood in line for that credit card game, sign up for a card and receive a prize. Today’s offering: A Husker blanket.

 

Little girls dressed in Nebraska cheerleader outfits, little boys wore helmets and carried small footballs, everybody donned the requisite red gear. “Restore the Order” T-shirts were popular items.

 

It’s two hours before the start of … practice.

 

Nobody does spring football quite like Nebraska, where 57,415 clicked the turnstiles Saturday for the annual Red-White game.

[kc_husker]

Yeah that was awesome on the front page of the KC Star was a big

picture of memorial stadium. They try and dog us ever year and when the

KU game was Fri night and MU was the same day as ours they put our

stadium on the freaking front page. Bunch of dumb sh#ts that live down

here.

[Redman]

Let them all try, but I seriously doubt that any will even come close to the NU spring game. They are little kids trying to copy the pros.

[Washusker]

LOL that Mizzou, Kansas, and K-State are being compared to our spring game!

 

 

[huskerdavo]

I am truly proud of all our fans and again the best in all of college football!

 

I cannot wait for the Big Red to start rumbling again. May this summer pass quickly!

[Foppa]

I wouldn't go watch a KSU spring game if they stole our WienerSchlinger, (or however it's spelled or called), wadded up $100 bills in foil instead of hotdogs, and shot that out into the stands the whole game.

[tattooedhusker]

I wouldn't go watch a KSU spring game if they stole our WienerSchlinger, (or however it's spelled or called), wadded up $100 bills in foil instead of hotdogs, and shot that out into the stands the whole game.

no, i wouldn't either, i'd kick his ass and take it back!

[Eric the Red]

White beat the Purple 21-14 in the annual Purple-White Game in front of a spring-game record crowd of 31,875 at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

 

 

 

all they could muster was 31k.....

[Eric the Red]

Spring game attendance

 

Ohio St. - 63k

 

Notre Dame - 41k

[THROW_DA_BONES]

well, its true....there is no place like nebraska