On Saturday, April 12 the Ashland University football team will be able to showcase their returning and incoming talent for the upcoming fall season.  

The spring game will only feature the 115 players that are on the roster currently. While other teams may bring in other teams to compete against, Ashland has enough players to divide the squad into two.  

“We’re lucky enough we get 115 [players] through the spring, 115 that we can break up into two full units,” Head Football Coach Doug Geiser said. 

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) gives each Division II team 36 days to practice 15 times. So, Ashland is currently practicing three days a week on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, in preparation for the spring game which takes place during the fifth week of practice. They will also have played two scrimmages amongst each other by the time the spring game rolls around. 

By being limited with their practices, Geiser finds, “you’re not banging every day, and it becomes a real teaching situation.” The spring is used for mostly fine tuning the players skills and installing the team’s system for the fall. During the fall, you’re preparing for a new team each and every week, while the team is trying to get better as a whole.  

Geiser describes spring practice as a laboratory.  “You get a chance to install your systems once again, we’ve done some research in the offseason, are we going to tweak the system a little bit, any additions or deletions.” 

One looming question on the minds of Eagles fans is, who will be starting at quarterback come the fall? Last season, the starting quarterback was Trevor Bycznski but after he declared for NFL Draft this offseason, the Eagles will need to find a replacement and this spring is a chance for them to show off their skills and present how they can help this team.  

There are only two players competing for the starting spot, current redshirt junior Cameron Blair and redshirt freshman Drew Novak. Blair has been with Ashland for all of his collegiate career totaling just 46 passing attempts in his three years of eligibility. Novak has not seen any action as an Eagle but had a very successful high school career. Novak is third all-time in Ohio high school history in career passing yards and fifth all-time in career passing touchdowns.  

The position has not yet been decided so each player is looking to use this game as a tryout for the starting spot over the other. 

Spring is an opportunity for the football team to know what works, what doesn’t work, who wants to play and who doesn’t want to play in the fall. Each and every player, no matter the player, will have to work for their spot on the team, which is why spring is such an important time for teams.  

The Ashland University Eagles football spring game will kick off on Saturday April 12 at 1:00 p.m. in Jack Miller Stadium.