Nick Saban weighs in on Hugh Freeze’s idea to play spring scrimmage vs. in-state school

Hugh Freeze wants to get rid of the current spring game format and turn it into an all-out exhibition against another team. Nick Saban thinks the new Auburn head coach is on to something.

Freeze’s proposal would include hosting a local in-state university for the annual spring game — all tickets and proceeds would be donated to an agreed upon charity. To him, it would help the Tigers get a look how his team’s progressing, get real game-time reps against someone other than themselves and gives the smaller school exposure they otherwise wouldn’t have at this point in the year.

“We’re always interested in helping people in any way that we can. If that’s the purpose of what they’re doing, that’s certainly a good thing,” Saban said about Freeze’s idea. “We try to do a lot of things to create opportunities for people in our foundation and will continue to do that. If there’s something along those lines in the spring game that would be helpful to somebody, I think it’s a great idea.”

Having Alabama on board with this proposal is the bigget co-signer Freeze can get. The only problem is — Alabama hasn’t played (or scrimmaged) an in-state school other than Auburn since 1944. Regarding in-state schools, Alabama and Auburn have never played Troy or South Alabama. Ever. Unless you count Auburn’s freshman team playing Troy’s in the 1920s and 30s. Auburn played UAB back in the 1990s, but Alabama has never matched up against the Blazers in program history.

Troy head coach Jon Sumrall said that he would have no problem with heading up to Auburn or Tuscaloosa for an exhibition, while UAB head coach Trent Dilfer said, “pretty, pretty, pretty please,” about the idea. “I think you’re looking to hopefully play people that are perceived to be much better than you so you can use it as a test to see where you’re program’s at.”

 AL.com columnist Kevin Scarbinsky recently wrote a column about Freeze’s comments, saying that Troy, UAB and USA all deserve better than ‘spring scraps’ with the state’s two premier football programs. He said Iron Bowl coaches historically tend to ignore the in-state teams while giving others teams in their conferences (C-USA and Sun Belt) opportunities to play them on a yearly basis.

Alabama and Auburn will bring in the likes of ULM, Mercer, Western Kentucky and others — and the Crimson Tide will even kick off its season paying Middle Tennessee $1.6 million to play at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Sept. 2.

It’s not like those in-state schools aren’t getting any love, though. UAB will visit Georgia this season, Troy plays Kansas State, South Alabama visits Oklahoma State and Jacksonville State will play South Carolina.

Even better, Auburn is already ahead of the game. They’ll host South Alabama for the first time inside Jordan-Hare Stadium in 2025. Now, it’s Alabama’s job to put one of those teams on their schedule.