HELENA -- It may not be spring just yet, but spring football for Carroll College has officially started.
This year, though, things are a bit different with the Frontier Conference moving fall football to the spring. There's a chance for a conference championship on the line for the Fighting Saints.
"Obviously, it's just kind of different," said Carroll defensive back Zach Spiroff. "Sometimes you get kind of excited to do something that's a little bit different than what you normally do. This year, obviously, it's just kind of going to be exciting to get back on the field again after not being able to play this fall. Just to be able to play football again, it's pretty exciting."
"There's a little bit more of a carrot," said Carroll coach Troy Purcell. "With the conference championship opportunity there. You have competitive games that mean something. So right now, it's fall camp to us."
Mother Nature had some tricks up her sleeve with cold temperatures and flurries of snow the night before the Saints opened things up, but for Purcell, it’s just another of the changes this year is bringing, and nothing Mother Nature does will spoil the feeling of having a season.
“It's just great to get out here," Purcell said. "Doesn't matter if it was, I mean, two weeks ago, it was 40 degrees and whatever. And I think everybody gets a little gun shy when it's a little bit colder out, but you're playing from cold into warm instead of playing from warm into cold, so it is what it is."
The Carroll College Fighting Saints will open up their spring football season on March 13 against the Rocky Mountain College Battlin’ Bears in Billings. Carroll released its modified spring schedule on Wednesday. The schedule will be five weeks long, and each Frontier Conference team will play four conference games with one open week.
The Saints will play their first two games on the road against Rocky and Eastern Oregon. They will finish the schedule with home games against Montana State-Northern and College of Idaho.
Carroll College Fighting Saints 2021 spring football schedule
March 13 -- at Rocky Mountain College
March 20 -- at Eastern Oregon
March 27 -- vs. Montana State-Northern
April 3 -- Open
April 10 -- vs. College of Idaho
