'Let's think OTAs': LSU football announces changes to annual National L Club Spring Game
BATON ROUGE — LSU football announced formatting changes to its annual National L Club Spring Football Game on April 12 inside Tiger Stadium.
Following the team's fifth spring practice Saturday morning, Brian Kelly told reporters that LSU is transitioning its annual spring football game that caps the spring session and its 15 allotted practices to a "much more engaging event for our fans with our players."
Kelly said that LSU's spring game "won't be a continuous game." The plan is to break the team's final practice up into more situational work. Kelly anticipates the Tigers working a lot more special teams into the game this year.
The idea, he said, is to allow the "spring game" to function more like one of LSU's normal spring practices.
"For us it'll be the culmination of the work that we're going to be doing. It'll be a scrimmage but it'll be controlled, situational," Kelly said. "You'll get a chance to see all of your favorite players and be part of the culmination of our 15 practices.
"We'll wrap up the event with an autograph session on the field in Tiger Stadium. A much more engaging event for our fans with our players. We're taking a different spin on it and making it a different event than it's been in the past."
Shifting the structure and format of the scrimmage —the team won't be split into two different teams — lets the LSU coaching to orchestrate the matchups that they want to see while also giving them an avenue to get more players on the field for evaluation.
"It's about getting all of our players opportunities to get reps. I can go one-on-ones , so we can get some really good matchups to test our players," Kelly said. "This format for the spring game for us makes sense and allows us to work on things we need to get better at."
Kelly plans for the spring game to be designed more like an OTA practice that most football fans have come to know from the NFL. Teams are only allowed so many practices during the spring and Kelly said in the past, his teams have had to use up the 14th practice to get players ready for the logistics of the spring game.
With this new format, the staff and players won't have to adjust anything.
"This way, we get a full practice on 14 and on 15, we get more developmental work that makes more sense," the LSU coach said.
"Let's think like OTAs. You get so many, so let's use them up."
Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: LSU football announces changes to annual National L Club Spring Game
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