Michigan State Runs Bat Relay Instead of Football Scrimmage

College football spring games rolled out across the country earlier this week as temperatures climbed and northern campuses kicked off their indoor activities. Most programs use this window to sort out their quarterback competition or map out their offensive line depth chart. Others treat the event as a big party for fans, showcasing the athletes' winter labor in seven-on-seven formats or skills competitions. An open practice fits some schedules just fine.

Michigan State took none of those paths. On Saturday afternoon in East Lansing, the Spartans ran a dizzy bat relay instead of a traditional scrimmage. That spectacle belongs on a list that should put their administration under serious scrutiny for what amounts to a crime against humanity.

I have to ask, what exactly did I just watch? We laugh around here plenty, but there is a line we do not cross, and replacing football with a bat race seems like the perfect spot to draw it. Someone might argue that after a grueling winter of work, players need a day to let loose. Let me be blunt: is losing fun? Since their eleven-win season and Peach Bowl victory in 2021, Michigan State has not won more than five games since then.

The team still played the event after this bat race incident, but they were trying to show fans they are rebuilding a proud program, not hosting a Founder's Day celebration at a Fortune 500 company. Fans showed up for their first spring game under new leadership and got slapped in the face with nonsense instead of football. My own team is also in its first year with a new staff and desperate for a return to glory. If that bat race had happened during our spring game, I would have built a bonfire out of every single piece of Florida merchandise I owned. Our fans would have made the January 6 riot look like story time at a preschool.

Spartan supporters are not thrilled either, and their comments on social media make the joke obvious. The optics were terrible all around. Pat Fitzgerald better hope his squad goes eight or four wins this season because the GIFs created from this moment will become legendary in the years to come. I root for Sparty, but Michigan State is a long way off from the glory days under Mark Dantonio.