Chadron State opened spring football camp under a sky beaming with sunshine Monday afternoon at Elliott Field.

Head Coach Jay Long always enjoys the first day of spring practice and had a big smile on his face most of the day overseeing drills and watching his new group get started toward the 2019 season saying, “I think that the first day is always just a fun day to come out here and learn our tempo, learn how to practice, and our guys that have got a lot of game reps came out here and handled their business.  The guys that are working their way into getting those game reps are still trying to learn the tempo and learn how to act.”

The Eagles will have more time than in the past to prepare and get familiar with tempo and the Eagle culture.

Coach Long added, “We just got some new NCAA rules this year. We’re allowed seven more days, not to practice, but to prolong spring a little bit more.  We still have 15 practices, but by (extending spring ball)  you don’t have to hurry everything so fast.  So we can practice, then we can have a day of film where we can watch it and correct our mistakes.  Then the next day we come out and practice and we fix those mistakes, film it, and then Thursday you go back through that process again.  So we’re going to practice Monday, Wednesday and Friday with meetings and lifting in between on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

The first two days of camp this week will be non-padded and mostly review for the veterans and a learning process for the young guys.  Monday’s drills included defensive backs stripping the ball from behind, running backs making sharp cuts at full speed and dozens of others varying by position as unit rotated and switched around the field.

As with every first day for the seniors, there’s more emotion tied to it.  The first thing cornerback Demetrius McFadden told me was, “It’s my last “first day” of spring ball” and I could sense the emotion of what the day meant to “Rabbit” knowing he’s headed into his final season playing the game he loves for CSC.

McFadden says his goals for spring are, “Getting better at my one-on-one coverage.  We were the last (ranked) pass defense (in the RMAC) last year.  Instead of (focusing mostly on an individual goal) I want to have a team goal to get better.”

Sophomore-to-be Malik Goss had a breakout freshman season and should be among the most relied-upon defensive backs again this year with a high ceiling ahead for his career.

Goss said Monday, “It feels good to be back out here with the team.  The energy around, everybody’s flying around, doing their thing. The off-season has been good.  We’ve been working on our off-man technique.  Just pressing at the line, reading coverages, looking at the quarterback and his release.”

Malik’s already outlined where he wants to improve and like McFadden is looking at how he can help the entire unit saying, “ (My goals are to) better myself and my man technique. Especially my off-man because that was probably one of my weaknesses last year, and then just help everybody develop where needed.”

Both players represent each coast and had quite a good time “Protecting the Rock”… or maybe “Preparing the Rock” is a better phrase for last Friday’s team-shoveling extravaganza at Elliott Field.

McFadden is from Florida and says, “I’ve never seen this much snow.  I’ve been here for five years and never seen this much snow until this week.  We had a lot of fun shoveling, playing around. But we still got the job done and now we’re out here on an empty field.”

Goss comes from California and told me chuckling, “We were out here for 2-3 hours so it was pretty deep (snow)! It’s something different for me being from Cali, but I like it.”

Coach Long couldn’t resist a little laugh when I asked him about seeing the fun the warm-weather players were having during the blizzard saying,  “Probably about the first 15 minutes the kids from the coast that aren’t used to the snow – they had a little snowball fight and all that type of stuff, then it was get down and get to work and get this thing done.  At the end of the three hours and fifteen minutes we were tired, there was no more throwing snowballs, it was (time) to get off the field.”

He added, “Yes, we did replace weights.  It took us about three hours and fifteen minutes to do a full football field – and that is some real work.  Basically, we shoved it into trash cans and hauled the trash cans off the side and dumped them.  I’m proud of our guys, there was no complaining, everybody just came out here and just did it.  I’m proud of the guys for coming out here and doing it.”

The team will practice again for two-and-a-half hours on Elliott Field Wednesday at 3:30.  Practices are open to the public.