UAB says it's down to play Auburn in a spring exhibition

On Monday, Hugh Freeze said he'd rather see Auburn play UAB than Auburn in the Tigers' upcoming A-Day spring game. 

On Tuesday, UAB head coach Trent Dilfer said he agreed. 

"Pretty, pretty, pretty please," Dilfer said. "Hugh's right. Whether you're Auburn or Alabama, you're looking for live competition, you're looking not to play yourself. I think if you're UAB or Troy, 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." 

For the record, Troy's Jon Sumrall is also interested. "I wouldn't have a problem with it. I'd go play," he told 247Sports. 

There are a lot of arguments in favor of this. College football is the only sport that doesn't play exhibition games, and there's plenty to be gained by doing so. 

And yet, there's a reason college football doesn't do it. 

To find out why, I called AFCA executive director Todd Berry and a (non-voting) member of the NCAA Football Oversight Committee, the group that would have to enact such a change. 

"We've been talking about this for 20 years, probably," Berry said. "We've voted on this before and the room has been all over the place, quite honestly. The ones that are against it would say, even though it's an exhibition game if you don't win it's more pressure on you in the summer. Why would I expose my freshmen players to the portal?

"I'm on the fence on it a little bit. I was a big advocate for it 20 years ago, I don't know that I'm as big an advocate for it now."

In short, Berry doesn't believe college football is, ahem, collegial enough to pull of a mutually beneficial spring game. A UAB freshman running back that pops off for 150 yards against Auburn in a spring game could, in theory, find himself an Auburn Tiger weeks later when the spring portal window opens. 

"I don't want to expose one of my players to an institution that can offer a contract I can't offer," Berry said.

There's also the issue that, no matter how much non-competitive wrapping the schools put around their inter-squad spring games, inside the box you'd still have one college football team playing another -- and all that entails. Over time, spring football would become less about development and more about game prep.

Instead, Berry suggested dropping the regular season to 11 games and replacing the 12th game with a true preseason game. Coaches and their rosters would be less exposed with the regular season approaching, with under-the-radar studs locked in to their current roster through the season and the fan base only having days to grumble over a poor showing, not months. 

"We're the only entity that doesn't have a preseason exhibition," Berry said.

That's one man's opinion. Freeze, Dilfer, and others have theirs. At the end of the day, no one man has the power to enact change on his own. That -- along with the lack of any exhibition games -- is what makes college football the unique sport that it is.