Northern football begins fall camp

Even though they just finished their last season four months ago, the Montana State University-Northern football team is already getting back on the field as they started their fall camp Thursday. Heading into the fall season, MSU-N head coach Andrew Rolin has a simple goal before their first kickoff of the season.

"To be better than we were before. That's always our goal," Rolin said. "We talked about continuous improvement in this program and so each day, we look to be better than we were the day before."

The Lights had their first practice of fall camp at Lights stadium. While he felt like there was some rust, Rolin thought the team's first practice of the season was an overall success.

"We started fast today, we played with unbelievable effort and pretty good execution," Rolin said. "Probably our best first day at fall camp, but we still have a lot of cobwebs to knock off, too."

It has not been long since the Lights' veterans last played as they finished their spring season back on April 10 against Eastern Oregon University. Since it has only been four months since the last time they hit the field, their performance at their first practice should not have come as a surprise.

"They knew what they were doing. They played fast because they know my expectations and I thought we had some guys step up and do a nice job today," Rolin said. "We just got to keep growing, keep getting better and I'm excited about this group but we got a lot of work to put in still."

The Lights also had many newcomers practice for the first time as Lights Thursday. One such player was transfer quarterback Kaymen Cureton, who will compete in the fall camp's four-way quarterback competition. While Rolin is optimistic they will learn his system, he knows some patience will be required.

"There's a lot of newness, there's a lot of change and you just got to adjust," Rolin said. "Some guys showed some good stuff, some guys just obviously need to get into the playbook and figure things out, but it will take some time."

Regardless of his players' experience, Rolin wants to spend the next few weeks cleaning up the team's execution before they begin the season.

"You got to know where to lineup and you got to be able to execute it with the correct technique and so we just got to continue to get better at that," Rolin said. "You just got to do your job and if we do our job and if we do it at a high level and we execute at a high level, we're going to be pretty good."

The Lights are coming off a shortened spring season where they went 0-4 in the Frontier Conference. A week ago, they were chosen to place last in the conference in the preseason coaches poll. Heading into his fourth season as the program's head coach, Rolin knows the time is now for the program to take a step forward, and he hopes to start that in their season opener Aug. 20 against the College of Idaho. With fall camp over the next few weeks, he hopes to have his team ready by then.

"I want to be the best we can possibly be leading into College of Idaho. Offensively, defensively, on special teams. I want us to come together and play cohesively and execute at a high level," Rolin said. "We'll have opportunities to test ourselves through this fall camp, but we got to find the right guys on the bus and the right guys are going to lead us to victory against College of Idaho."

The MSU-N football team begins their season against the College of Idaho on Aug. 20 at Lights Stadium.