Michigan Football: Playing an actual spring game is exciting

Michigan football is playing an actual spring game on Saturday, which is as exciting as some of the other things we’ll see on the field Saturday.

I love that we are going to get to see Michigan football play an actual football game on Saturday. Sure, it will have some controlled aspects.

But the Wolverines are going to be divided into teams. Jim Harbaugh will serve as the commissioner and they are going to compete their butts off for four quarters.

Here’s what Jim Harbaugh said about it back in February.

"“Do it how we like to do it — split up the staffs, Steve Clinkscale is gonna be the head coach of one of the teams, Sherrone Moore’s gonna be the head coach of the other, and we split the staffs and we have a draft, so we have two different teams. It’ll be one of those color out things — one team will be in the all-blues, the other will be in the all-maize, and it’ll be a football game. Make it as much like a football game as can be made. Guys get their, in some cases, their first chance to be in a game in The Big House. It’s always very exciting. Some of the starters — think of it like a preseason game — they may play a quarter, they may play a half. And the second half, guys play who haven’t played in a game before and they get their first experience of doing it. Opportunity all the way. And it’s fun and competitive.”"

Sherrone Moore and Steve Clinkscale will be the head coaches. The teams will be divided up as equally as possible and they will play which hasn’t happened in a few years.

And as much as we all love to see about 15 minutes of controlled scrimmages, putting the guys in a game-like atmosphere will be good for them and awesome for fans.

The biggest disappointment about this year’s spring game is probably the fact that five-star quarterback J.J McCarthy won’t be able to play. It would have been great to see Cade McNamara and McCarthy each take the lead of a team and see what they can do.

McNamara will obviously be the top quarterback and while I don’t expect him to play the entire game, I do expect him to play really well.

While many Michigan football fans can’t wait for McCarthy to take over the starting job, he’s been sidelined with a shoulder injury and in his absence, it seems likely that Cade has taken an even stronger hold of the starting quarterback position.

We’ll see if that holds true on Saturday. Additionally, we’ll get to see dynamic freshmen such as Will Johnson, Derrick Moore, and Darrius Clemons. Not to mention up-and-comers like Rayshaun Benny, George Rooks, Braiden McGregor, and others on offense such as Louis Hansen.

Despite all that, the best thing about the spring game is that it’s going to be an actual game. You can watch it on the Big Ten Network at 12 PM EST, which means some actual Michigan football is just two days.