Georgia Southern football head coach Jeff Monken and his assistants conducted a player draft Thursday morning to determine teams for today’s annual Blue & White Game.
    “I thought it would be fun for our staff and for the kids,” Monken said. “It’s a little different but you still have a mix of the whole team.”
    GSU will wrap up four weeks of spring practice with the 1 p.m. scrimmage at Paulson Stadium. Admission and parking are free.
    Monken said GSU will conduct its Southern Conference championship ring ceremony 12 minutes before the spring game begins. He said honorary captains will be Frankie Johnson, James Young, Chris Chambers, Kevin Jackson and Raja Andrews.
    The Little Eagles Camp for children ages 4-14 has been moved to 11:15 a.m. instead of 10 a.m., Monken said. Registration for the free event will be at 11 a.m. at Paulson Stadium.
    As a result of the draft, GSU’s third scrimmage will have a different look than the previous two scrimmages last Saturday and March 31.
    “It will be good for those guys to have to fit in and not play with the No. 1 offense and No. 1 defense,” Monken said. “We’ve kind of been playing with the same group of guys. In other words, if Brent Russell got picked by the Blue team in their draft then the White team had to pick another player at the tackle position on defense.
    “If the White team, on their next pick, picked Dion DuBose as an end then the Blue team might have picked Josh Gebhardt as an end. So that splits them up. Where you were going to have Josh and DuBose and Riley and Russell all on the same front four, now you might have Riley and Gebhardt on one team and DuBose and Russell on the other.”
    Russell said he is eager to showcase the strides the defensive line has made since spring practice began March 22.
    “I think we’ve made a lot of improvements from the first practice,” Russell said. “Last fall, we got beat in some spots, especially against the power offenses like North Dakota State. I think we’re doing a very good job of playing with a lower pad level. We’re getting bodies in there and just working.”
    Monken said he implemented the draft to add some spice to the scrimmage.
    “I think it will be interesting,” he said. “The last two years we split it. We’ve taken the No. 1 offense and put them in blue and taken the No. 1 defense and put them in white, and then put the No. 2 offense on the white and the No. 2 defense on the blue where they would kind of match up against each other.”
    Quarterbacks Ezayi “Izzy” Youyoute and Jerick McKinnon will lead different teams. Monken said he couldn’t recall which QB will be on the Blue team and which QB will take snaps for the White squad.
    “Izzy’s on one, Jerick’s on the other,” Monken said. “It’s just the way they got drafted. It could’ve ended up with them both on the same team. But when one team drafted one (quarterback), the other team immediately took the other. We had them draft from the same position so it wouldn’t get skewed.”
    Monken said the spring game will last about 2-2 ½ hours. The format will feature drives starting from the 30-yard line rather than via kickoffs. There will be punting with no live rush, only a fair catch. Field goals and extra points will be live.
    “And the clock will run just like (in) a game,” Monken said. “As we get closer to the end of the game, if it’s appropriate, we’ll start running the clock, with the exception of possession changes or touchdowns.”
    Monken said Dominique Swope, Darius Eubanks, Carlos Cave, Robert Brown, Blake DeBartola, Trevor McBurnett and Tevin Thomas will not play because they are recovering from injuries. He said the number of sidelined players is “pretty standard” compared to previous spring games.
    “I want them to have fun, play really hard, represent our program well and, hopefully, get out of it healthy and not have anybody get hurt,” Monken said.
    Prior to today’s 6 p.m. start of GSU’s baseball game against Appalachian State, the GSU Athletic Foundation will provide a free cookout in the lower parking lot of J.I. Clements Stadium.
   
    Noell Barnidge can be reached at (912) 489-9408.