Bobcats Opened Spring Practice With Four Specific Goals

The Texas State football team began the second quarter of its offseason program under new head coach Everett Withers when the Bobcats opened up spring practice Monday on the Bobcat Practice Fields.

“We just finished an eight-week cycle that we call the first quarter of the journey,” said Withers. “I felt our guys did a really good job from the beginning to the end right before Spring Break. I thought they did a really good job of growing as a football team and getting better at understanding what our expectations as a new staff are.”

The Bobcats enter the second quarter of the program with Withers hoping to accomplish four distinctive and measurable goals this spring.

“The first area is defining who the leaders are on our football team,” said Withers. “I think that this is a big area for us and we are still searching for that right now.”

In addition, Withers is trying to establish the identities of Texas State’s offensive and defensive lines.

“In this age of spread offenses, going real fast and “Party in the End Zone”, you still win championships up front, both offensively and defensively,” said Withers. “This is a huge, huge, huge area and we are going to try and find who our offensive linemen will be. First, we will find five, then we are going to try and find a sixth, a seventh and an eighth lineman.

“Then, we are going to do the same thing on defense. We want to find some guys who want to be relentless, want to attack, and be tough and physical guys up front on the defensive line.”

Another area of concern for Withers and his staff is to develop some depth and competition at all positions, especially quarterback.

“In the type of offensive system that we run, the quarterback position is really important and we need to have more than one guy who is able to run our type of offense,” said Withers. “We are going to run from our quarterback position and they have to run. They are going to have to do some things with their legs.”

Withers and his staff also look to identify Texas State’s offensive and defensive playmakers.

“I want to find guys who can make plays on offense when they have the ball in their hands,” said Withers. “We need to find guys on defense who can take it away. To me, you have to have playmakers on both sides of the ball, and you also need to have them in the kicking game as well.”

After the Bobcats opened their second quarter on Monday, Withers and his staff have 12 more practices to accomplish those goals and to set the stage for the coming season.

“We are introducing our basic practice schedule and how we do things in our first couple of practices,” said Withers. “When we get into Bobcat gear (helmets and shoulder pads), there will be a little more contact and more physical practices. Then, we do what we call winner and loser days when we keep points with the offense going against the defense. There are physical and hard-nosed drills to find out the physical toughness of your team. Then we have some scrimmages that are situational practices and we will spend some time in every practice installing the basis of our special teams.”

The Bobcats will have its annual Maroon-Gold Spring Game on April 9 beginning at noon with the offense and defense battling against one another. Following the spring game, the Bobcats will have three final practices to fine tune things.

“We have a couple of days to work on specific things that we want to correct,” said Withers. “We want to have the spring game and let the fans come out on April 9 and enjoy the game. Then, we have a chance to come back and get better.”

This article originally published by Texas State Athletics.