Illinois will move its Orange and Blue Spring Game from Thursday to an open scrimmage on Friday at 7 p.m. CT because of forecasted inclement weather on Thursday.

The open scrimmage at Memorial Stadium will be free and open to the public. All distributed premium seating tickets remain valid on Friday. The scrimmage will no longer be broadcast on Big Ten Network.

Bret Bielema said last week that he will follow similar spring-game rules to previous years. It’ll be “ones versus the world,” Bielema said, meaning the starters will play against all the backups. The starters will receive standard scoring, while the backups will be rewarded double the points for any score, such as 12 points for touchdown and 6 for a field goal.

The National Weather Service forecast is that there will be showers and a thunderstorm Thursday night, and the
chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.

“As stressful as we can make it,” Bielema said of the goal of the spring game, per 247Sports. “I don’t know what type of crowd we’re going to get, but it’s TV at night, a different feel. We’ll be tackle football except for on the quarterbacks. I’ll probably keep out a handful of guys that have proven they can play winning football for us. But I’m looking for clean execution. I want to play offensively clean football, move the sticks, make big plays, see how things happen. Defensively, obviously, we’re looking to make stops, create field position. The kicking game will be a bit limited, but I’m excited to see it play out and under the lights.”