Head-to-Head

The IU football team has seen it all since it started spring practice four weeks ago. The first day of practices saw spring-like warm weather and clear skies. Last Saturday’s intrasquad scrimmage saw snow as the temperatures dipped below freezing.\n“Any weather’s football weather for me,” said senior cornerback Leslie Majors. “We play in it all. It’s hot in the summer, then it gets cold in the winter. It’s the whole season combined in three little short weeks; we got the heat and the cold.”\nNot all IU players are as impartial to the temperature as Majors is. Junior wide receiver James Hardy said he prefers the warm weather.\n“In the cold it’s harder to catch the ball,” Hardy said. “I’d rather play in 90 degree weather than 25.”\nUnfortunately for Hardy, the temperature during Saturday’s intrasquad Cream and Crimson football game is forecasted to be chilly. The high is predicted at 42 degrees with a 70 percent chance of precipitation, according to www.weather.com.\n“It can’t (snow),” IU assistant head coach Bill Lynch said. “Where was that – Cleveland – where we saw the snow swirling for (baseball’s) Opening Day? It’s got to get better.”\nBut Lynch stressed the point that in order for the Hoosiers to be successful in the fall they will need to be able to adapt to any weather conditions, as the regular season runs from early September through mid-November.\n“We’ve seen the whole season in two weeks, which is unique, and that’s why we talked to the team about it,” Lynch said. “A day like (last Saturday) you would win a football game differently than you would on a day where it’s 70 degrees out. That’s what a good football team does: They can play well and win in all different situations and adapt (to) weather or being on the road. All of those things enter into being a good football team.”\nThe Cream and Crimson game will kick off at 3 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Stadium. Admission is free. It will be split into four 12-minute quarters.\n“The spring game is exciting,” Majors said. “It’s the end of spring ball and a chance for the fans and prospects to come down and see how we play.”\nIn Saturday’s scrimmage, the Hoosiers hope to showcase their running game, which Lynch said they have been working on a lot. \n“Sometimes when you’re trying to find yourself and who you are, you start searching for things in the spring,” Lynch said. “You think it’s time to experiment, and that’s true to a point. But I think right now just doing it over and over again, there’s nothing like reps, particularly for the younger guys up front.”\nBut Saturday will be the last time the coaches have to hold practice with their players until the summer, giving the players one last chance to impress their coaches.\n“In my experience you never know what’s going to happen in spring games,” Lynch said. “That’s kind of a day where they have fun. There will be somebody that will have a big day that you least expect. It’s a good way to finish (spring practices) off.”