NCAA Denies Colorado-Syracuse Spring Football Game

Colorado and Syracuse won’t face off this spring, despite their efforts to organize a formal scrimmage in Boulder.

The NCAA has denied the two schools’ request for special permission to hold the contest, which is prohibited under current policies. In a formal notice, the FBS oversight committee cited the late notice of the timing of the request and the competitive and recruiting advantage the schools would have received, as well as the impact on players missing classes.

However, the committee will discuss the concept at a later date, which could lead to a joint spring game some time in the future.

Earlier this month, Colorado coach Deion Sanders—who signed a $54 million contract extension Friday—said he wanted to hold joint practices for a few days with another program and then play a game against each other, much like NFL teams do during training camps and the preseason.

Sanders made the remarks after announcing that Colorado’s own in-house 2025 spring game is scheduled for April 19, to be broadcast on ESPN2. Coach Prime also pushed back against the trend of canceling spring games altogether that major schools like Texas, USC, and Nebraska have done this year.

In the aftermath of Sanders’s comments, Syracuse coach Fran Brow said on social media he would be interested in taking his team to Boulder for a spring game, and eventually the two schools requested a waiver from the NCAA to make it happen. 

For some time, it appeared that momentum was building around the spring game happening.

“We wouldn’t have submitted it if we didn’t think there was a legitimate chance for us to get that,” Colorado athletic director Rick George told the Boulder Daily Camera as recently as Thursday. 

Colorado’s 2023 spring game drew 551,000 viewers on ESPN, so there’s no doubt a matchup against another Power 4 program would have been enticing for the network. 

It’s unclear whether Colorado would have altered its plans to air its spring game on ESPN2 if the Syracuse contest had panned out.