ANTHONY GETTINO
Sports Editor
In this whacky year of college sports all around the country, we’re beginning to see something no one would’ve ever guessed would happen before our very eyes: an official spring college football season.
For those who wouldn’t think twice about why this is weird, it makes sense. Teams have always run some spring practices in Division I football in order to keep up their teams’ conditioning while they have them on campus.
But, they only ever play in one or two scrimmages with minimal hitting and usually very important players on the team sit out of these games.
This is because of the strain that playing football at such a high level has on the body. Most Football Bowl Subdivision teams decided to either opt out entirely from playing football for the 2020-2021 academic year or worked through the fall semester.
However, many Football Championship Subdivision schools wanted to try out the spring semester and hope for the best come the 2021 fall season.
One of those teams is North Dakota State. Having won the past three FCS Championships and 37 straight games entering this season, the team was all for playing this year, fall or spring.
But with potential first round quarterback Trey Lance and a myriad of other quality players sitting out this spring, that streak of wins came to an end after just the third game.
This is such an important loss because the FCS Championship was also moved from the fall into the spring this year, being held from April 18 to May 15, with eight fewer teams than the usual 24 team field.
Ten of the teams will automatically qualify for the tournament style championships through winning their respective conferences, while the last six spots will be filled via at-large bids.
The strange part of all this is that any FCS schools that decided to go through with a fall season are still technically eligible for these championships, albeit with an almost five month layoff between their last game and now.
There are also only so many games in this spring season as well, so a loss means more now than ever before for teams trying to compete.
With North Dakota State being in the Missouri Valley Conference, they will only play eight conference games this season.
Another fun storyline to watch this spring is the beginning of the coaching career of legendary NFL cornerback Deion Sanders. He is taking over the Jackson State Tigers and has already made numerous headlines in his short stint.
In his first recruiting cycle for the Tigers, Sanders has already signed the best HBCU class in history, headlined by his son Shedeur Sanders, who chose Jackson State over teams like Alabama, Florida and Oregeon.
A spring season is the perfect time to see who Sanders is as a coach at this stage and how long it may take for him to create a competitive team at Jackson State.
These are just two of the many storylines for this spring college football season, and some of the reasons why everyone should at least take a look at a game this semester.