Golden Gopher Football Fans Get Spring Practice Invite

There is a lot of football being talked lately. As I’ve written in the past, there never is really an off season. As a society, we’re either watching football in season or talking about what we’ll see when the season starts. 

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And not’s not just true for the NFL, I love college football and many of the people I know do too. We regularly are chatting about the upcoming season and what can be expected, or which players are coming or going with the open market for college football players these days.  

To me there’s nothing like the atmosphere of a college football gameday. Hearing the band play, the tailgating and seeing the families who have been coming to these games as a family for years. There is a lot of pomp and circumstance that comes along with a college football gameday. 

Before we can get to that point, there’s got to be spring football. “Spring Ball” as it’s called is 15 on field practices over a 34-day period for teams to begin to install their vision of what the team will look like in the fall.  

Spring practices are sacred to most coaches for a few reasons. First, for the returning players spring ball is a chance to see what the changes will look like for the upcoming season. For younger players who may not have played much the year before, it’s a chance to get more reps as they hope to move up the depth chart. 

For any new players, transfers or early enrollees, they begin to learn the playbook and start getting fit into their new team. But these practices, like most practices during the season have limited availability for media and hardly any access to the public. 

If you are a Minnesota Golden Gopher football fan, you have a special opportunity to get a look at what the team will look like this season by attending the open practice session. That date is Tuesday April 15th at 4:15. If you are a member of Dinky Town Athletics, the fundraising collective for Minnesota, there will be an open practice on Tuesday March 25th at 4:15.  

I’ve never been to a Minnesota practice or game for that matter, but I worked for in college athletics for over a decade before coming to Minnesota, and I’d be willing to bet that what you will see will be very controlled by the coaching staff.  

They’ll likely run plays in the scrimmage periods that are the basics of what you’ll see from the team all year, but probably not any of the trick plays or different looks the team will hold sacred. Attending spring practices are good opportunities to watch the drills and see the coaching staff work with their position groups.  

As in years past, The Gophers are asking for fans to bring diapers that will be given to the Minnesota Diaper Bank. Over the last 8 years, over 135,000 diapers have been donated to the diaper bank through these open practice dates.  

Both special spring practice dates will be held at the indoor practice facility at the Athletes Village.