Texas A&M is in the midst of a significant renovation to its stadium. As a result of that, the school has elected not to have a spring game for the next two years. The rationale behind the decision is interesting:
“NCAA rules related to an off-campus spring game would include football staff members, as well as current Aggie football players, not being able to interact with prospective student-athletes and their families. Also, the institution would not be able to provide complimentary admission to high school, college-preparatory school or two-year college prospects or their coaches because the event is not a regular-season event and would be taking place outside of a 30-mile radius from campus.” [Emphasis added.]
Get that? TAMU doesn’t want to spend the resources to host a spring game elsewhere because it feels it would be a waste without being able to invite recruits. Meanwhile, Georgia has a special opportunity to do just that every season, but evidently feels it would be a waste to invite recruits.
I can always hope Pruitt’s fresh eyes convince some folks to revisit that policy.
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Keep in mind Senator, that any invites to the spring game are not official visits. But to Jacksonville, they would be. That’s a big difference. It’s apples and oranges, IMO. One can argue for bringing recruits to Jax, but the trade off is giving up the official visit in Athens. That’s a big deal.
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Interesting. So, why didn’t McGarity cite that as a reason Georgia has elected not to invite recruits to the game?
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The Gatorz elected not to do it either, course the reason for that may be obvious…this year might be different for Florida.
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It doesn’t have to be official. There are unofficial visitors all the time. Some kids visit almost every home game. They just have to pay their way. For recruits in the Jax area and south Georgia it would be a shorter drive than Athens. Not negating what McGarity says but where there’s a will there’s a way is not just a saying.
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Yes, inviting recruits to jax makes no sense. We can’t interact with them, they can’t come on the field pregame, and we essentially can only give them a free ticket. Better to deploy coaches into Florida on Thursday night and Friday of that weekend.
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Right, unless we made it an “official visit”. And that kind of defeats the purpose. Just giving away tickets doesn’t do much, IMO. Now, if they could be a part of the locker room, etc. That would be different.
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I’m not a big time donor, and I’m not willing to give up my tickets so a recruit and his family can come to that game. Especially if that recruit still has the opportunity to go to FU.
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I hate to break it to you but that doesn’t matter at all to the people making the decision.
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Meanwhile, we decide to renew the old tradition of scheduling our spring game on Masters weekend. We really smart.
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yep.. noticed that. Sometimes you have to wonder about the decision making. Everyone in GA understands the Masters weekend, except for UGA.
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G Day and Masters…2 entirely different crowds. I never got that one. So what if a few Masters patrons miss G Day. If you have to choose, choose. G Day is nothing but a frolic anyway. Running clock, many scholarship guys sitting out.
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Are you familiar with the UGA fans base. It isnt an entirely different crowd than the Masters crowd. It is just about the exact same fan base. There is a ton of overlap to be sure.
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There are a lot of people who choose to watch the Masters on television over going to G day. Add them to the people who choose to actually go to the tournament and you have a lot of people skipping G day.
Not “2 entirely different crowds”. There’s a significant amount of overlap.
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I am a big fan of both. Bad decision by UGA.
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Me too. I haven’t missed a G-Day in a while. But they just lost me. Sometimes I wonder about McGarity.
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So when you say you havent missed a G-Day in “a while” you mean, “I havent missed one in the last 3 years and didnt pay attention to when the G-day game (or the maybe the Masters) was prior to that.”
Since McGarity’s hire in August 2010 EVERY G-Day has not been on Master’s weekend. The 2014 G-Day game is the first of the McGarity era that will fall on the same weekend as the Masters.
But please tell me more about your long standing family tradition and how you question McGarity’s decision making because he is the only AD that has consistently schedule G-Day on a weekend besides Masters weekend.
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Thanks for the rant. Hope you feel better. And hope you enjoy G-Day. But I repeat … I won’t be there.
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If they were on back to back weekends….somebody would still be complaining.
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“somebody”
So what? The number of people who wouldn’t go to G day b/c it’s the Saturday before/after the Masters is way less than the number of people who won’t go b/c it’s actually during the Masters.
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because people hate having something to do on consecutive weekends?
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Why show prospects Jacksonville when you can show them Athens instead? Jacksonville stinks. I used to live there.
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Das klingt gut!!
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Maybe not that one. But there are other areas we can hope those fresh eyes influence.
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