Northern football begins spring practices

Heading into its second year under head coach Jerome Souers, the Montana State University-Northern football team will look to take that next step as a program in order to begin competing in the Frontier Conference. The next step in that journey for the Lights will be their spring ball sessions, which began earlier this week. Over the next few weeks, the Lights will look to use spring ball to get the ball rolling on their preparation for the fall season.

"Everything we're doing right now is to gear up for improvement," Souers said. "Blocking, tackling, throwing, catching. We're covering all those basic fundamentals that have to improve. That's the trajectory we want out of this spring."

Over the next few weeks, the Lights will practice Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Early on, they are wearing their helmets and their shoulder pads but are hoping to transition into practicing in full pads soon.

Early on in spring ball, the Lights have focused on conditioning. They have already spent plenty of time in the weight room working on their strength, so they will now focus on improving their speed.

As the Lights get more practice time in, they will begin implementing scrimmage-type scenarios into their practices. With such a young roster, they will need to get in as many game-like reps that they can before beginning their tough schedule later this year.

A key position that the Lights are already keeping an eye on is quarterback, as Chance Fields is the only player with experience at that position heading into this season. As they begin spring ball, the Lights will look to integrate the young quarterbacks into the offense.

The Lights currently have 47 players on their roster while recruiting many more. About eight of the players are new after coming in during the middle of the semester. With limited numbers last year, the Lights struggled to have spring ball, so they are already ahead of last year's preparation.

"We have a lot of teaching going on and we're already seeing some quality improvement and skill development," Souers said.

The Lights hope to culminate spring ball with a scrimmage April 22. They then hope to have two more practices to wrap up spring ball and then transition to player-run practices, which will prepare the players to practice on their own during the summer. As players get more responsibility, Souers hopes that it sets an example for the program.

"We're trying to establish a preparation standard," Souers said. "We've made some great strides that way. The team understands where we're going and they're holding each other accountable."

The Lights have been at the bottom of the Frontier Conference the past few seasons with an 0-10 record in 2022 during Souers' first year leading the program. While the Lights have a long way to go to climb their way out of the conference basement, Souers believes the Lights are working their way there.

"We're optimistic about our improvement and our growth," Souers said. "They have a great attitude, they're working hard and I love the look in their eyes."