College football fans across the country made their way to stadiums to cheer for their favorite teams this past weekend as the spring games continued to unfold. While it’s important for fans not to read too much in to what they saw when they got their first look at this year’s rosters that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any early disappointments. Here is a look at the four biggest losers from Saturday’s spring games.
The Boston College Offense
The Eagles’ offense really struggled throughout a 3-9 season a year ago in which they failed to register a single win in ACC play. Boston College averaged just 17.2 points and 275.6 yards per game overall, but their numbers were even worse when you remove FCS opponents, which left them with 10.6 points and 246.5 yards per game against FBS competition. So when the Eagles failed to score a touchdown in a game that finished with a final score line of 6-2 – despite using a standard scoring system – it was a major red flag for the fans. This is a team that has really labored to get much going since the days of Andre Williams running the football, and they haven’t had a quality quarterback since the days of Matt Ryan, so fans who were hoping to see a change saw more of the same.
The Boston College defense is expected to be pretty good again this year, but the offense looked really out of sync in the spring game and after what we saw last season that should be another major red flag.
Texas Quarterback Tyrone Swoopes
A shoulder injury to sophomore quarterback Jerrod Heard opened the door for Tyrone Swoopes to lock down the starting job at Texas. However, a terrible performance in the spring game won’t help to convince Longhorns’ fans that he will thrive in that role. Swoopes completed just four-of-16 passes for 71 yards and two interceptions in the first half before the rain swept in and cancelled the second half. Meanwhile, freshman Shane Buechele completed 22-of-41 passes for 299 yards and two touchdowns. The fact that the freshman had that much stronger of a game than Swoopes only raises more question marks about the Texas quarterback situation. There are already fans and media that are calling for Buechele to get a chance at the starting job. It will be interesting to see how things unfold once Heard returns for the Longhorns. The Texas program is a pressure cooker right now and there needs to be some tasty results delivered. That makes Charlie Strong’s quarterback decision that much more delicate.
The Alabama Kicking Game
Alabama kicker Adam Griffith has made 36 field goals in his career with the program but one of his most memorable moments was his miss on the infamous Kick Six against Auburn in 2013. Crimson Tide fans have done their best to distance themselves from that memory but it crept back in to conversations following a poor performance from Griffith in the spring game. Griffith made just 1-of-5 field goal attempts in an obvious sign of rust but those struggles can be taken with a grain of salt for now. Griffith missed his first four field goals in the 2015 season then went on to hit 23-of-28 attempts the rest of the way for a very strong season overall.
Ohio State Football Fans
Buckeyes’ fans are responsible for the two largest spring game crowds in college football history. So when it was announced early Saturday that they had sold out with 104,944 tickets gone for this year’s game it was clear they had the potential to add another strong number to their totals. However, when the official attendance was announced there was only 100,189 fans on hand which means that at least 4,000 fans were either late or didn’t show up. It was a strong attendance number nonetheless but for Ohio State football fans it would have paid off to show up early in order to have the capacity crowd in attendance at kickoff time.
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