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Bad weather forecasts wreaking havoc on college football spring games

Sam Cooper
College football writer
Cold and wet conditions plagued Ole Miss’ spring game last week. With more bad weather on the way, many other schools have canceled their spring games, (Bruce Newman/The Oxford Eagle via AP)
Cold and wet conditions plagued Ole Miss’ spring game last week. With more bad weather on the way, many other schools have canceled their spring games, (Bruce Newman/The Oxford Eagle via AP)

If your team was scheduled to play its spring game this weekend, there’s a good chance it has already been cancelled.

Thanks, weather.

Ominous forecasts across the midwest have already caused Michigan, Wisconsin, Northwestern and Iowa State to pre-emptively cancel its games. Michigan, Northwestern and Iowa State’s games were scheduled for Saturday while Wisconsin had a Friday game on the docket. But with heavy rain and thunderstorms likely, they were called off.

“The safety of our student-athletes and fans is our utmost priority,” Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez said. “The weather forecast has been pretty consistent in calling for a good chance of rain and thunderstorms on Friday. We thought it was best to make the call early to give the numerous groups involved in the game, including our team, our fans, our media partners and staff, notice of the cancellation as soon as possible.”

Michigan’s Warde Manuel offered a similar sentiment:

“We want to ensure the safety of our fans as well as the student-athletes and staff. We also wanted to provide as much notice in advance for fans and the families of our players that were considering attending.”

Instead of going with an outright cancellation, Minnesota moved its game up to Thursday evening at 6 from noon Saturday. Louisville did the same, with its game getting pushed from Saturday afternoon at 1 to a 7:30 Friday night kickoff. Bowling Green’s game will start at 2:30 p.m. Saturday as scheduled, but has been moved inside to Perry Field House.

Ohio State, which hosts a capacity crowd for its spring game every year, is going with a wait-and-see approach.

The school said in a release that approximately 79,000 tickets had already been sold for the game. No more will be distributed because of “construction in B-Deck and restoration work on parts of C-Deck” of Ohio Stadium. Because of the construction, “about 18,000 seats will not be in use” at the 100,000-plus capacity stadium.

If Ohio State proceeds with the game despite the weather, the turnover will undoubtedly look better than Arkansas and Ole Miss. Both schools dealt with unseasonably cold conditions last weekend.

Spring games are a big deal at a lot of schools. With the season still months away, it’s a great way for fans to check in on the team’s progress while getting some good tailgating in. They also serve as big recruiting events for many programs.

It’s a shame when mother nature intervenes.

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Sam Cooper is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!

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