Playing Football in the Spring May Be Unrealistic
While Pac-12 football teams could physically play and conduct a season in the spring of 2021, it might not be the best choice for the conference. An argument has been made that it will hurt recruiting for the fall and Washington and others will fall behind or lose prominence.
Washington would lose out on spring football with new players. While new commits for Alabama or LSU are enrolling early to practice with their teams in the spring and prepare for a fall season, UW will be preparing to face someone like Oregon and looking past new commits getting reps and practice in with the team.
For a player such as Puka Nacua, who broke his foot at midseason, the chance to properly rehabilitate the injury or the risk of suffering re-injury could make it a multiple-season impact.
Athletes also will have little bounce-back time if they need to play in the spring and start training in July or August for another season. That's asking these guys to play football competitively for seven or eight months. Pac-12 players simply won't have the rest period that other conferences have.
Circling back to recruiting, Washington coach Jimmy Lake and his assistants won’t be able to recruit kids in the spring because of practicing during the week and games on weekends.
The 7-on-7 tournaments will be a stretch to attend while coaches from the SEC, ACC, and Big 12 will have an easier time to recruit kids and start to build a rapport.
Everyone is frustrated there is no Pac-12 football on Saturdays, no Apple Cup to win, no Oregon rivalry game in the fall.
However, it might be best not to have a spring season because of how unrealistic and detrimental it really could be to the athletes and the program in the long run.
Just last week, UW picked up yet another commit, 3-star safety Vincent Nunley and then yesterday, 3-star and the number one tight end of 2022, Chance Bogan.
