The saga that has been the LSU football spring practice and game has taken an expected twist.
Because of construction at Tiger Stadium, it was announced last month by LSU that its annual spring football game would be moved Southern University, a Historically Black College/University located in Baton Rouge. Then, in the midst of the growing coronavirus pandemic, LSU had initially decided late last week to continue with spring practice, which had kicked off March 7. That decision was subsequently taken out of the hands of LSU specifically and the other members of the conference as the SEC suspended all sports activity until at least April 15, including spring football.
Monday, however, LSU athletic director Scott Woodward confirmed that the football program’s annual spring game has indeed been canceled. Woodward’s confirmation came one day after the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a statement in which it recommended that all gatherings of 50 or more people be canceled or postponed for the next eight weeks. Such a timeframe would shut down events such as spring practice until mid-May at the earliest.
“We’ll worry about how we prepare for the fall sports in the appropriate time, whether that’s allowing more practices or it’s doing things differently by sport, but that’s to be determined,” Woodward stated. “I want to assure everyone that we will be back together as an LSU family in due time, but the most important thing, and the priority now, is our collective effort to stop the spread of this virus.”
It’s expected that, at some point in the not-too-distant future, other SEC schools -- and the rest of the FBS for that matter -- will follow the lead of LSU and cancel their spring football games as well. In fact, as this post was being written, Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos stated that the Cornhuskers’ spring game won’t be played as scheduled on April 18 “and probably will not occur at all.” Additionally, Louisiana announced that the Ragin’ Cajuns’ spring game has been nixed.
Other schools such as Ohio State (HERE) and Michigan (Michigan (HERE) had previously confirmed that their respective spring games had been canceled.
