The NCAA nixed Syracuse and Colorado joint spring football to review a new direction

When Syracuse athletics announced the 'Orange Tripleheader' on its X account earlier in the week, it was the unsuccessful end result of assisting for the second straight offseason to try and shake things up in the usually quiet world of internal FBS college football, on-campus spring practices.

Instead of Coach Fran and Coach Prime having a blast while putting their respective Buffaloes and Orange through the spring paces of practices and scrimmages in either Boulder or Syracuse, on Saturday, April 11 the Dome will be one busy building with three games in two sports, spanning some 10 hours.

First, a pair of ACC lacrosse games featuring the SU women (Notre Dame-12:00 p.m. ET) and men (Virginia-4:00) followed by the 'Cuse football Spring Game shortly thereafter.

With all due respect to the great Syracuse lax programs, and to Hall of Fame coach John Desko who at halftime of the men's game will see his name join fellow multi-championship coach Roy Simmons Jr. as one of just 10 members of the SU Athletics Ring of Honor, can you imagine what the Dome would be like with SU and CU in a controlled scrimmage live on, let's say ESPNU?

You know those two head coaches would be playing up the atmosphere for all its entertainment value to all those watching live, in-person or not. But the NCAA is saying "no" for the second straight year, and even more importantly, is taking a full scale review of the entirety of the college football annual calendar.

Sorry Orange Nation. It will have to be another intra-squad matchup to satisfy your curiosity as to which of the the talented young players on the roster stand out as one's to help get the program back to a bowl game in 2026.

The NCAA is not ready to make changes to how FBS teams can spend their practice time in the spring

As detailed this week by USA Today, the NCAA Division I FBS oversight committee decided during a January 22 video meeting, not to grant Deion Sanders' request (secondarily Fran Brown's) to allow Colorado to hold joint spring practices with another team (Syracuse), citing its desire to complete a review of the entire football calendar.

However, leaving open the possibility of future changes , including using input it received from both SU and CU as to why the desire for joint spring practices, the subcommittee studying the issue, is also weighing the in-season portion of the calendar which currently starts with August practices and games Labor Day weekend, and ends with the CFP championship game, now played the third Monday of January.

The expected expansion of the CFP to at minimum 16 teams, and potentially 24 for the 2027 season, means an extra round of games, and the desire to provide the four top-seeded teams a home playoff game on campus, while still completing the season by the third Monday in January (also MLK Jr. Day each year).

Why the desire for joint spring practices in college football?

Part of the reasoning for what Sanders termed a 'pilot program' for college football to look at changing things up in spring protocol was to reduce injuries, a problem that actually had some P4 programs having to cancel past spring intrasquad games due to risk of injuries.

Colorado's reasoning was that a joint scrimmage would only have 11 players from a team on the field at one time, instead of 22 players in an intrasquad format.

In a separate USA Today story last year on the original 2025 waiver request to the NCAA, Syracuse senior associate athletics director, sports medicine, Jon Mitchell, contributed a letter to the NCAA supporting the benefit of a joint team scrimmage.

"This controlled, competitive setting would ultimately lower the overall injury for all participating student athletes," Mitchell wrote, advocating for the waiver citing game-like conditions against another team, as opposed to players practicing solely against their own team.

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