March 18, 2008

LOGAN, Utah - Utah State football will open its 2008 spring drills on Wednesday, March 19. The Aggies will have a total of 15 practice dates, including a final scrimmage.

After Wednesday, 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.

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.

USU head coach Brent Guy and his staff will welcome approximately 95 players to spring camp. The Aggies return 18 starters (six offense, 10 defense, two special teams) from last year's squad that was 2-10 overall and 2-6 in USU's third season of Western Athletic Conference play.

"We always look back on where we started and where we are now. I remember our first spring when we had 56 players out there and we're going to have over 95 this spring," Guy said, who is starting his fourth spring at the helm of the Aggies. "Even more important is that there are a large number of players that have played for us in the past and have a great deal of experience."

This season's senior class-to-be were freshmen in Guy's first year as USU head coach.

"This senior class is pretty much the first group of players that saw a lot of playing time as freshmen. Those guys have played a lot of football for us so we're excited because we have an experienced team and we have a lot more depth at positions that allows us to move some guys around to create more depth," Guy said. "We'll actually have three groups we'll be able to work through all spring and evaluate. Our numbers are very good and we expect it to be a very competitive spring as far as moving guys back and forth from first to second and third teams, and creating that competitive environment that you have to have every day in order to get better."

Utah State lost eight starters (five offense, one defense, two special teams) among 15 seniors from the 2007 squad. Included in that group was four-year starting quarterback Leon Jackson III.

"The obvious position that everybody will be looking at is quarterback and we have Sean Setzer returning as a senior, Jase McCormick returning as a junior, Diondre Borel as a sophomore and a redshirt freshman Ben Longshore, who has talent," Guy said. "We'll try to split those reps as even as we can and try to do as much live work as we can like we always do because you get a lot better picture of how they'll do in a game."

Among the returners are 39 letterwinners (13 offense, 23 defense and three special teams).

"I think on both sides of the ball as well as our special teams groups we have a lot of people that have done a lot of things so it is going to be much harder to get our roster to 64, which is what we have to get down to for travel, than it has been in the first three years because of the depth that we've created," Guy said.

In addition to the returners, Guy and his staff will get their first look at junior college transfers, redshirts and walk-ons in action.

"We also have some junior college transfers that we are really excited to see in Magnum Mauga, Chris Williams, Jeremy Mitchell and Casey Davis, as well as Deshon Benton, who got in an academic snag and was unable to play last year. We're excited to see him because he is an older, experienced player that we expect to see big things out of," Guy said.

The Aggies' depth allows Guy and his staff to move some players to different positions, including seniors-to-be De'von Hall from linebacker to safety, and Roy Hurst from safety to corner.

"Our depth was one of the things that allowed us to move De'von Hall and still have good depth at linebacker," Guy said. "I think it's going to be a lot more physical spring and we'll also be working hard on some things from last year. For instance we had six games where we had a lead in the fourth quarter and we only won two of them. So we will be working a lot of those type of situations that we were in for those other four ball games where we needed a stop or a first down, or even a case of we needed to take a couple minutes off the clock, all those situations will be live situations that we'll work on."

Besides working on game situations, the Aggie coaching staff will be working with the redshirt freshmen from last season, in preparing them for the upcoming fall action.

"We're also real excited about our group of redshirted freshmen that we haven't seen, because we've been able to redshirt some more kids than in years past," Guy said, in singling out (wide receiver) Stanley Morrison, along with five offensive linemen, while defensively, (defensive tackle) Cedric Reeves and (cornerback) Sidney Allen, who had a really good spring.

"We had a lot of redshirts that we're excited to see and will only add to the depth and talent of our football team, but as well as special teams play," Guy said. "That's why it's going to be the most competitive spring we've had and the toughest spring we've had for us as coaches when it comes to making some decisions before fall camp. We're in a position that we need to be in to be at this stage where our numbers are good and our depth is good."

Utah State won its last two games of the season, finishing with a 2-10 overall and 2-6 WAC ledger, matching the 2005 squad for best WAC record. The Aggies finished seventh in the league standings. Both of USU's wins last season were on the road, the most road wins since 2000 when the Aggies were 2-4 in away games. For the first time since 2003, Utah State won back-to-back conference games and the Aggies won consecutive games on the road for the first time since 1999.

USU will have six home games for the first time since 1998, including in-state rivals Brigham Young and Utah. The Aggies are scheduled to open the 2008 season on Aug. 30 at UNLV.