Spring is no time for a walk in the park: hear the sounds of pads cracking and hype smacking? We must be five months from the start of the season.(College Football)

Ah, the joys of spring practice. A few lazy weeks of tossing the ball and getting reacquainted. You can almost smell the jasmine floating in the air.

Yeah, not quite.

I'm here to tell you spring practice is more important than any practice outside of the regular season. More important than the utterly useless bowl week practices. And--believe it or not--more important than fall camp.

"Spring practice is critical," says N.C. State coach Chuck Amato, "because summer is right after it."

Translation: There is no bigger motivating factor than four months of wondering how hard the guy ahead of or behind you on the depth chart is working. A month of fall camp can't make up for 16 weeks of preparation.

There are other reasons spring practice is important--a new staff implementing its systems, young players getting used to more prominent roles--but the lure of playing time remains the No. 1 factor.

In 12 years as coach at Florida, Steve Spurrier had one spring in which he designated a starting quarterback. Every other year, the job depended on how well the quarterbacks developed throughout the summer. We're talking about All-American quarterbacks here: Shane Matthews, Danny Wuerffel, Rex Grossman.