Spring Drills Opened Wednesday for USU Football

March 19, 2008

Even though snow was still piled up on the sidelines and in part of the bleachers of Romney Stadium, the Utah State football team took to the field to open its 2008 spring drills on Wednesday. The Aggies had 97 players in helmets, shorts and jerseys going through drills, the first of USU's 15 spring practices.

 

"Today's practice was a lot like playing golf without a ball. Every swing you hit it right down the fairway," USU head coach Brent Guy said. "With the way we get to practice these first few days without pads, it's a lot easier to throw and catch, and it looks everyone will be in position to make the tackle. We moved around well today. I'm very pleased with the number of bodies we have out here and our depth. We're able to move some guys around and rearrange some players."

 

The optimism spread beyond the coaching staff to the players, including senior-to-be linebacker Jake Hutton.

 

"Today was good, we can't really get a whole lot done without pads, but today was mostly mental anyway, especially for the new guys to learn everything," said Hutton, a second-team all-WAC selection last year. "We've got a lot of new players who need to learn how to do things so it was good for them."

 

"I think it's going to be a real fun, competitive spring, we're just anxious to get through these next few days," said Guy, who opened his fourth spring practice in his tenure at the helm of the Aggie program. "We're trying to install as much as we can and throw as much at them as we can on these non-pad days."

 

USU will practice on Thursday and Friday, March 20-21, then Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday over the next three weeks, concluding with the spring scrimmage on Friday, April 11 at 4 p.m.

 

"We really can't start critiquing them thoroughly and fully evaluating them until Monday when we get some live-reps and get pads on," Guy said.

 

With nearly 100 players in action Wednesday, it was the most in the last decade for USU football and certainly in Guy's four years.

 

"We had 97 players going today, including 64 scholarship guys, compared to our first year here when we had 56 total including walk-ons," Guy said.

 

Hutton was especially impressed with the depth that the Aggies have this spring.

 

"It was nice to get a good rotation going and nice to build depth. I've been hurt in the past and people have stepped in, so it's good to have spring ball to develop some depth behind us, so when one of us goes down, another guy can step in and fill the spot, and do the job," Hutton said.

 

As well as the depth, Hutton and the USU defense are adapting to two position changes, as seniors-to-be De'von Hall is moving from linebacker to safety, and Roy Hurst from safety to corner.

 

"We've made some good changes. We moved De'von Hall to safety and De'von knows the defense just as good if not better than anyone out here so that's going to be good for us to have him back there calling the D. We've moved Roy Hurst to corner and he's going to be a really good corner for us. Most everyone that we got back knows what they're doing and I don't think we've ever had this much experience on the field so I think our defense is going to do really well," Hutton said.

 

Besides the returners, Hutton also expressed enthusiasm about the addition on defensive line, including junior college transfers Casey Davis and Magnum Mauga.

 

"We picked up a couple defensive tackles to help us out because we were a bit light in that position last year, so I think we'll have a good rotation at tackle this year," Hutton said. "I think our defense is going to be a lot better."

 

All practices, as well as the scrimmage are open to the public and will be conducted at Romney Stadium, weather permitting. If bad weather, practices will be held in the Laub Indoor Training Facility.

 

NOTES: New strength and conditioning coach Jake Scharnhorst and defensive graduate assistant Thomas Dunson saw their first Aggie action Monday... Scharnhorst replaces Mark Uyeyama, who became an assistant strength and conditioning coach for the San Francisco 49ers while Dunson replaces Eric Sanders, who returned to his alma mater of UC Davis... USU was unable to practice in Romney Stadium last spring due to the construction of the new Athletics Center.