How do you get your players to treat a scrimmage like a game? By getting your fan base to treat a scrimmage like a game. And how do you do that? By moving it 120 miles off campus.
On Saturday, Texas Tech's football program packed up and left Lubbock for the roughly two-hour drive south to Midland, where more than 10,000 red-and-black supporters showed up to fill the local high school stadium. More than just a practice, this was an event, complete with the appearance of the Masked Rider and tailgaters. If you didn't know any better, you'd think it was a fall Saturday.
Saturday's scrimmage was a break of the spring ball monotony, a gesture of goodwill for Tech's Midland fan base and, most importantly, a wonderful day of brand management.
“Tech could do this all day in Lubbock,” said Texas Tech graduate Tim Culp told the Midland Reporter-Telegram. “But it’s a huge benefit to the Permian Basin and not just Midland and Odessa, but to Monahans, Andrews and Big Spring, and it draws a lot from the rest of the Permian Basin.”
For a school looking to establish itself as the state school of West Texas, the Red Raiders would be wise to hold similar days in important West Texas cities like Amarillo, Abilene and San Angelo.
And why shouldn't more programs do this? College football is a wonderful sport with a strange schedule. Thirteen games (if you're lucky) and nine months of off-season means passionate fan bases spend more than 90 percent of the calendar separated from the teams they love.
If Texas Tech can get 10,000 fans to watch practice in Midland, how many would show up to watch, say, Ole Miss in Memphis? Or Wisconsin in Milwaukee? Miami does a swell job of barnstorming its spring practices around south Florida but, outside of that, college football is missing a chance to sell itself to a willing audience.