Now, that’s some concerning news for college football fans. Going by the traditions, with the end of one season, they still had something to look forward to. That’s the spring games. Now that the schools are striking off the spring games, mainly for the tampering accusations, someone had to take a stand.

That’s when Clemson Tigers HC Dabo Swinney made headlines by addressing the elephant in the room. He seems to be totally against the cause behind the act of cancellation. Later on, a national analyst joined Swinney coming up with a clear stance on the present situation.   

CFB analyst doubles down on Dabo Swinney’s stance

Now the Tigers fans might feel the luckiest now. Swinney comes off as a godsend as he assured that Clemson is not going to make that cut on their spring games. As he stated, “We’re going to have a spring game and I hope we can have some type of fan day with it, as well.” This might come off as music to the fans’ ears. The other programs have opted out of hosting the game in fear of other schools trying to lure away players in the age of immediate transfers. But Swinney believes there are a lot of ways that tampering can take place. As bunking on spring games won’t stop the problem, Swinney stated, “They got PFF. That’s called PFF. They’ve got everything on everybody already. Canceling the spring game ain’t gonna stop tampering.” Now On3 analyst Andy Wasserman walks on the same path. 

He did not miss out on the opportunity to mention the protagonist of the Michigan Wolverines’ sign-stealing drama, Connor Stalions. Wasserman stated, “Connor Stalions up in the second deck like this looking at your third string left tackle like that, that’s just a contrived storyline.” Now he believes that coaches love to make a big deal about it. Wasserman stated, “Because coaches love nothing more than complaining about tampering.” Now unless and until you have some really good players, there is no need to be afraid of the spring games. The discussion did lead to a solution on how to tackle the tampering.

“I hope that with this revenue share and contracts and employment situation, we can get to a place where players sign an agreement and are locked in for a few years.” And considering the tampering fear, Swinney is right. Nowadays does a team wait for spring games to target players when there’s plenty of tape out there already for the top players? But some programs still can’t trust it completely.  

The spring games cancellation spree hits college football

While Swinney comes off as an indomitable spirit, Nebraska Cornhuskers HC Matt Rhule was the first one to back out. This year the gates of their Memorial Stadium would be locked for the fans that usually witness 60,000 landfall. Normally they finalize their spring game dates by December. However, till the end of January this year there was no update. That’s because after how their Mission Dylan Raiola did not turn out as expected, Rhule could take no more risk. 

They can no longer relate to the spring games’ logic. The HC broke silence, “Last year we were one of the more televised spring games, and I dealt with a lot of people offering our players a lot of opportunities after that…To go out and bring in a bunch of new players and showcase them for all the other schools to watch, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.” Later on, Ohio State Buckeyes and Texas Longhorns also followed in Rhule’s footsteps.  

After that, Oklahoma Sooners too joined the race. Oklahoma’s vice president and director of athletics, Joe Castiglione stated that they will host a “Crimson Combine.” This will feature player drills and skill challenges. The event will also include fan engagement opportunities. Now that Dabo Swinney stands out of the crowd, will he have to change his tune and believe in tampering?