The entertainment value of spring football usually ranks somewhere between youth soccer and "Matlock" reruns.
The players are unmotivated, the coaches are conservative and the fans are still hung over from basketball season.
Saturday's Spring Game certainly was no exception, as the White squad rolled to an uninspiring 19-0 victory over the Purple team. This was football at its worst, complete with interceptions, fumbles, high snaps, low throws, dropped passes and missed blocks.
Of course, sloppy spring games are nothing new, which leads to a logical question: why do we play them in the first place?
"I don't know if the Spring Game is really for the players at all," said senior safety Marcus Watts at Tuesday's press conference. "It's mostly for the fans, I think."
To which the 16,732 fans who attended Saturday's Spring Game replied, "Gee, thanks."
Granted, no one showed up expecting a masterpiece. But even the worst spring games usually provide some glimmer of intrigue, some momentary infusion of excitement.
Instead, fans watched quarterback Josh Freeman and the Purple offense do absolutely nothing. That's not an exaggeration - the Purple team finished with zero yards and zero points.
Let's be clear about something: it's difficult to play an entire football game without gaining a single yard. Freeman is 6-foot-6, which means he could gain two yards simply by falling on his face.
Still, coach Ron Prince seemed unconcerned by the woeful offense, choosing to focus on the performance of the White team's defense.
"I'm really excited about the play of the defense," Prince said. "If we came out here and lit up the scoreboard ... I wouldn't be feeling too good right now."
OK, that all sounds fine. The White defense did look pretty impressive, led by junior Reggie Walker's six tackles and senior Rob Jackson's relentless pass rush.
But that didn't make this game any easier to watch.
You've got to give Prince credit for doing his best to make the Spring Game a fan-friendly experience. He instituted the Spring Game draft, which added a bit of legitimate excitement to an otherwise ho-hum event.
Then Prince transformed the annual scrimmage into the Spring Game Fan Fest, complete with a Ferris wheel, barbecue cook-off, petting zoo, demolition derby, quilting bee, fashion show and ABBA cover band.
Still, it felt remotely like putting a bow on a, well, you know the expression. It's enough to make one long for simpler days, when the price of admission was a bar of soap and the players ran wind sprints after the scrimmage.
Fortunately, fans can take comfort in the fact that a lousy spring game doesn't mean much about the season to come.
And as one sportswriter pointed out, we can thank Prince for one innovation guaranteed to make the Spring Game a better experience for all involved: the running clock.
Austin Meek is a senior in journalism. Please send comments to sports@spub.ksu.edu.
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