By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
The Washburn University football team will hold its annual Spring Game on Saturday inside Yager Stadium, starting with warmups around 9:40 a.m.
Washburn's football team will hold its annual Spring Game Saturday mornng in Yager Stadium. [Photo courtesy of Washburn Athletics]
Following team stretches and special teams drills, a controlled scrimmage will last until approximately 11:45 a.m. going through 20 periods of plays.
Washburn coach Craig Schurig, whose Ichabods are coming off an injury-riddled 2-9 season last fall after three straight winning seasons, said he has been pleased with how the spring has gone. Most all of the players that suffered season-ending injuries last season are back on the field and healthy while a ton of young players who were pressed into duty last season are also making strides according to WU's veteran coach.
"You feel like the team is really coming together,'' Schurig said. "The youth that we had in the fall, the fact that they got all that playing time, you can see their sense of urgency to get better because they've seen what it takes in this conference.
"So they're focused. It's a fun group, a lot of enthusiasm. They go hard and you can see them starting to play together. We've got a ways to go but if we get this group to play with their instinct and their speed, we're good. They're getting more and more like that, where they're just playing.''
Washburn will open the 2024 season at Emporia State on Thursday, Aug. 29, before having a week off before opening its home slate on Saturday, Sept. 14, hosting the Colorado School of Mines. The series with the Orediggers was last played in 2010 after a seven-year home and home schedule.
Craig Schurig, the winningest football coach in Washburn University history, will begin his 22nd season this fall. [File photo/TSN]
After last season's struggles, Schurig expects the Ichabods to enter the '24 season with the attitude that they have something to prove.
"If you're a competitor, you're like, 'Hey, we got our butts handed to us,' so you should have some anger,'' Schurig said. "You should have some drive that we can't let that happen. That should definitely be a driving factor.''
