So a glorified practice where they invite the public? Hmm...sounds almost exactly like what they're doing, no?
I think it's a question of publicity. They're clearly deciding to go low-key here.
Having the scheduling up in the air made it tough. Alternate universe, if Lovie and Whitman are able to stand up there at his intro press conference and say "Illini Nation: Spring Game is April X, a new era dawns that day, be there" and you hype it along the way, then you could be looking at generating a lot of "Oh my god, look how many people went to Illinois' spring game" headlines, the kind of thing that never happens for Illinois football. Get recruits down there, the whole bit. That sort of thing would be mentioned on every game telecast this year.
You'd be fighting an uphill battle to generate that kind of publicity now. And maybe the idea is, one threat of rain and all of a sudden its the same old empty stadium for the spring game and that's the headline. This way you're managing expectations.
I dunno, just thinking out loud.