Lights excited and ready for spring finale

The Montana State University-Northern football team has been practicing nearly a month and after today, the Lights will have 14 practices in before the MSU-N spring game which is scheduled for Saturday.

Yet over the past few weeks, the Lights have become a vastly different team according to first-year head coach Andrew Rolin, and he said the spring game is just the finishing point for what has been a successful spring.

"We have seen a lot of growth," Rolin said following practice this week." We have seen exponential growth. It's hard when you are in the moment because I hold such a high standard for these guys. It may come off that I am upset about one thing, but that's just because I am going to hold us to that higher standard each and every day. But if you were to look at practice one compared to where we are now, we are light years ahead and that's exciting. That doesn't mean we have arrived. We have to continue to get better."

The final chance for the Lights to do that this spring will come at noon. Saturday when they take part in their spring football game at the Northern practice field. Rolin said that the game would be a controlled scrimmage but that it would be live. However, he has not decided if he will allow live hits to the quarterback.

"It's going to be live," Rolin said. "I am just not sure about the quarterbacks yet. That's a decision I need to make, but if you see them getting hit on Saturday, you will know that it's 100 percent live."

Rolin said that the Lights will work on a lot of situational things, putting the offense and defense into different situations to see how they respond. Throughout the spring, Rolin has mixed in competitive drills, like a two-minute drill on Wednesday for instance and the spring game will feature even more of those competitive situations.

"It will be more of a scrimmage format," Rolin said. "We are going to put guys into different situations. We will give the ball to the offense backed up, then at the plus 40 and our own 40, also some red zone situations. We will also have some limited special teams. We will do some PAT, field goal and punt, but no kickoffs or kickoff return. It's definitely going to be competitive though. We are going to get after it."

One of the most intriguing aspects of the spring game will be monitoring the battle at quarterback between Tommy Wilson, Dylan Cook and Bryce Missey. All three quarterbacks have split reps throughout spring practice and will do so again Saturday. Yet, with a new coaching staff, there is competition across the board, particularly at some of the deeper positions such as wide receiver, defensive line, linebacker and the secondary,.

While Rolin has been clear from day one that a starting job or a spot on the two-deep won't be won in the spring, making a good impression is never a bad thing and that's what the Lights and their first-year head coach will attempt to do Saturday.

"Our guys play with a lot of passion and we are going to be fun to watch," Rolin said. "Our guys are going to play physical. We are going to play fast and we are going to be fun to watch. I really believe that. I am never going to promise anything. Like I said when I got here, we are a process team. We need to take care of the little details day in and day out and the rest will take care of itself."

The Lights scrimmage will start at noon. Following the game, there will be an alumni/community cookout.