Young Lights hungry to compete this spring

The Montana State University-Northern football team was back on the practice field this past Wednesday, as the Lights kicked off their spring workouts ahead of the 2017 season next fall.

Northern, which is scheduled to hold three, two-hour practices a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, opened spring football with 60 degree temperatures, which is a change from recent years.

"You never know what kind of weather you are going to get for spring practice," Northern head coach Aaron Christensen said. "But the snow melted and it turned out pretty nice. This works."

While the change in weather was a positive change for the Lights, there were also a lot of other noticeable changes, particularly in personnel after program stalwarts like Zach McKinley, Mario Gobatto, Tyler Craig, Tyler Brusio and Pat Barnett all graduated. Their absences left plenty of holes on both sides of the ball, ones Northern will look to fill, starting this spring.

"The one thing that is really nice about this group is that they are excited and there is a alot of energy and enthusiasm" Christensen said. "There are a lot of guys out here who are in either their first or second year of spring practice for us, so we have a lot of guys that are hungry and that want to get a chance to play, so that is exciting."

Offensively, Northern is young across the board and will have a four-way quarterback competition going from now until fall camp to decide the starter for next season. The Lights are also looking for a new starting running back to replace McKinley and are also missing Gobatto at wide receiver, as well as Pete Morales up front.

"Especially on offense, we have a lot of competition," Christensen said. "We have guys competing for time at just about every spot. So there is a lot of enthusiasm with these guys because they want to play and get better and that makes it exciting because we have a lot of guys that really want to do well."

Northern may have some competition at high profile spots on the roster, but right now, the focus is developing a young team at every position across the board. On Wednesday, the team started spring practice with about an hour of individual drills, before moving to 9-on-7, 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 team drills later in practice.

"I thought that it was a good day," Christensen said. "The guys worked hard and it was a good start. Obviously, we are in the beginning stages here and we are just looking to focus on all the little things, the fundamental things and doing all that stuff right."

Northern will be back on the practice field today at 4 for another two-hour practice, then will be off for the weekend before returning to the field Monday.