March 18, 2002

LOGAN, Utah - Utah State's football team went through its first of 15 spring practices on Monday. The workout was conducted in the Stan Laub Indoor Training Facility, where the Aggies plan on practicing Wednesday, Friday and Saturday this week due to snow on the practice field.

"We are lucky we have this facility," said USU head coach Mick Dennehy.

The practice was divided into an offensive session, a combined session and a defensive practice due to space limitations.

"Without pads there is only a limited amount of what you can get out of practice," Dennehy said. "We got to do a little coaching, but it is tough to emulate tackling and blocking. I think the players got an understanding of the basic stuff of what we want to run."

Dennehy said he felt good about where the team is in his third spring at Utah State.

"It is funny thinking back two years ago how bad we were," Dennehy said of his first year spring here. "We are probably far enough along with the number of returnees we have to run an offense right now. The key is getting the young guys, especially the offensive linemen and linebackers, as many reps as we can get them.

"We have got 15 practices and five months to get the young guys bigger and stronger so they can play this fall," he added.

Dennehy was excited to have 42 returning lettermen among the approximately 100 players at practice.

"Most everybody out here are guys that we recruited," Dennehy explained. "They understand the drills. They understand our tempo and they understand our practices."