MORGANTOWN — The evolution of the college football spring game has been a topic of discussion in recent years, especially with the transfer portal and NIL. It used to be an intersquad scrimmage, but now it’s shifted to a more modern interpretation. What it looks like depends on the school.

This weekend, starting at noon, will be West Virginia football’s spring game, or, for this year, it’s called the Gold-Blue Spring Festival. It’ll be an all-day affair. The parking lots open at 8 a.m., there’s a WVU Gear Sale from 9:30-11 a.m., and then the spring game at noon. But this year, WVU is having a free concert after the spring game, starting at 2:30 p.m. The concert is with country singer Jake Owen.

A couple of schools are transitioning to this all-day event. Texas A&M will have a show after the game, and South Carolina completely replaced its spring game with a Darius Rucker concert.

College football is in an era of revenue generation in an attempt to reach the revenue-sharing threshold and NIL deals to pay for rosters. These festivals are another way to generate more money.

“We look at it as maybe just a scrimmage, but it’s a lot more than that,” Rich Rodriguez said. “Now, with everything getting monetized and needing so much more revenue, I think it’s going to be an opportunity to maybe explain that a little bit to a lot of folks this weekend.”

But what will the actual football portion of the weekend look like?

Last year, Rodriguez ran around 90 plays, which was a lot more than most expected, especially since last year there was a spring portal, so players could jump ship. Rodriguez hesitated showing too much, so other teams couldn’t poach players.

Even without a spring portal, the spring game is expected to look a little bit similar, but different.

The football portion will run roughly from noon to 1:30 p.m., and it’ll mostly be an intersquad scrimmage, like what was seen in the past. On April 8, Rodriguez split the players and coaching staff down the middle and scrimmaged, so those will be the teams for Saturday’s festival.

“Of course, we’ll scrimmage, try to let them have a little fun,” Rodriguez said. “We split the team up in the blue and the white jerseys, and have a little scrimmage with them. This will be a kind of continuation of that. Everybody will play.”

Most of the team will be live, meaning they can be tackled. Quarterback Scotty Fox is “banged up” with a hamstring injury, according to Rodriguez, so Fox is expected to be in a touch jersey.

“He’s got a little hamstring, nothing big,” Rodriguez said. “Knowing him, he’ll want to play a little bit.”

Oklahoma transfer quarterback Michael Hawkins is also expected to be in a touch jersey, so aside from them, the rest of the players can be full contact.

“We’ll blow quick whistles if it’s an unimpeded blitz or something like that,” Rodriguez said. “I think they’re anxious to do that.”

For most of the scrimmage, quarterback coach Rhett Rodriguez, the son of Rich, and offensive assistant Travis Trickett will call the plays for the teams. The two called plays against each other on the April 8 scrimmage, too. Rich will also call plays.

“Which is fun for me because you kind of sit back and watch,” Rodriguez said. “I was kicking myself, but I have to let them have a little fun. Saturday will be a little bit of a mix.”

Rodriguez said, like last year, he’ll jump into the stands with his playsheet and have fans call some of the two-point and overtime plays.

“With the overtime, or two-point plays, going to the stands again like last year,” Rodriguez said. “There were some really good play calls. There was one where we all booed because it was not a very good call.”

But there are some restrictions on this year’s scrimmage. With the concert after the game, the stage will be pre-set up, so the south end zone can’t be used for play. The scrimmage will just be on the end zone in front of the big scoreboard, making for a half-field game. Since only half the field is being used, WVU won’t do kickoffs, but it’ll still do punts and field goals.

“I was going to play just like a game, just go both ways, but we got the stage there, so we’re gonna have to just go one way,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve done that once in my career at Jacksonville State. We played at North Alabama in the baseball stadium. It was kind of a neat setup, but you went one way, so it was kind of screwy on a punt. We won, and it was actually a pretty neat atmosphere.”

The players are expected to play hard, even if it’s just a spring game. This is still one of the 15 practices allocated to each program in the spring, so Rodriguez will maximize it. There are a lot of new players fighting for a lot of open starting spots.

The practice is still being used for the overall evaluation process of the players, and Rodriguez expects it to be “intense,” aside from the quarterbacks.

But the main goal for the football portion is for Rodriguez to get his team in front of fans for the first time before the 2026 season. There are a lot of new faces and numbers to learn, and Rodriguez wants fans to get a taste of what the team will look like, so by the fall, Milan Puskar Stadium will be mostly full by kickoff.

“Have a little fun, and hopefully we’ll have a nice crowd,” Rodriguez said. “The weather is supposed to be pretty warm, I believe. We got a festival, a lot of stuff going on, great concert going on afterwards. Saturday’s gonna be a fun day for everybody.”