Will Stein on holding a Spring Game: 'You know the best way to get better at football is? Play football'

Kentucky football’s Spring Game earlier this year was more like a spring practice.

Fans were still invited out to Kroger Field to see the action, but instead of the traditional full-tackle scrimmage, this year’s event was centered more around small-group work, a no-tackling scrimmage, and some 7-on-7 action. Mark Stoops even called it “a very generic, very bland, very vanilla version of football.” This wasn’t unique to Kentucky, either — spring games just aren’t as popular today as they were a decade ago.

But what will Kentucky’s Spring Game look like now that Will Stein is running the program? He was asked about it during his introductory press conference on Wednesday. While he didn’t go into specifics, he wants the scrimmage to simulate a real game.

“You know the best way to get better at football is? Play football,” Stein said. “This isn’t like basketball. You can’t just go play five-on-five hoops out in the backyard. You got to put the pads on, you got to hit, you got to tackle. That’s how you get better. That’s how you become tough to win games on the road in the SEC, you got to play football, and that’s what we’ll do through spring. It’ll be a tough camp. Fall will be a tough camp.

“But what is that going to make us? Gonna make us tough on Saturdays. It’s gonna make us tough to beat. Excited about getting through strength and conditioning this winter, setting up a great plan for these guys to get bigger, faster, stronger, getting ingrained our offense, defense, and special teams, and then moving to spring football.”

That will be music to the ears of fans wanting more offseason football.

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