Unlike past years, Saturday’s Spring Game will not feature two different teams. Instead, it will be an offense versus defense scrimmage with a refined scoring format.
The changes to this year’s format were brought about because of a lack of depth, which in turn was brought about partly because of injuries. A number of Tech players won’t be able to participate in Saturday’s game, which means the coaching staff wouldn’t be able to field two full teams at certain positions.
“We will go offense versus defense,” Justin Fuente told the media on Tuesday. “We don’t have enough for a team right now.”
Though the staff doesn’t release medical information, we already knew that Seth Dooley missed the spring while recovering from shoulder surgery, and one source told us that defensive end Vinny Mihota could miss the game as well. If that’s the case, that would leave Tech with just five scholarship defensive ends on the roster for Saturday’s game. There are no walk-on defensive ends on the roster this spring.
The injury bug has also caught up to the offensive line. Yosuah Nijman and D’Andre Plantin aren’t expected to be able to participate on Saturday, and a recent photograph from practice showed Kyle Chung on crutches as well. Their losses would give the offensive line only 10 available scholarship players for the Spring Game.
Besides all that, wide receiver Cam Phillips was spotted by the media in a walking boot in the Merryman Center on Tuesday afternoon. There were already depth issues at wide receiver, though the loss of Phillips will give more reps to the younger players who really need the work.
“We’re just not ready for a full-fledged game,” Fuente said. “But I think people will enjoy it. We’re definitely going to go out there and get good, quality work in.”
The scoring system for Saturday's game will be released later in the week.