Lights much deeper this spring

With every day that the Montana State University-Northern football team hits the field in the second year of spring football under head coach Aaron Christensen, it gets better.

Already, with spring practice less than halfway toward being completed, the Lights have clearly taken a step forward from last season, not only from last fall, but from last spring. Yet, while the Lights are progressing, including many young players, some of them redshirt freshman, Christensen knows his team still has a way to go.

“We are much further ahead than we were last year and these first couple of weeks have been pretty good,” Christensen said. “But compared to where we were at last year, it’s not even close.”

Christensen said he and the coaching staff came into spring practice wanting to work on three specific things. Outside the obvious need to develop the talent on the roster, the Lights wanted to address their special teams, which were less than stellar a season ago and often left Northern with poor field position.

Secondly, Christensen wanted his offense to focus on being productive on a down-by-down basis. Too many times last year, Christensen said, the Lights didn’t produce positive yardage, which made getting first downs and touchdowns, more difficult to achieve. And lastly, the second-year coach wants his defense to focus on limiting big plays.

“We gave up way too many big plays last season,” Christensen said. “So that’s really been a focus for us. We also have really put an emphasis on special teams, because we need to do a better job in terms of field position. So those are three things we really thought we needed to improve, to get better, and so we have focused on those things and I think that is going well.”

In terms of getting better results on the offensive side of the ball, Northern has already taken some positive steps in that direction. Quarterback Jess Krahn, who started all 11 games for MSU-N a season ago, has taken a step forward this spring and according to Christensen, he is not alone among the quarterback group.

“We feel much better about the quarterback position,” Christensen said. “The nice thing that we have now is that we can put in four guys and they can play. That’s not something we had last year.”

Yet, the improvement on the offense isn’t limited to the quarterback position, the offensive line also has an improved look to it and a big reason why has been an influx of young talent amongst the hogs. Dylan Schmidt, a redshirt freshman from Lakeside, Washington, has worked his way into contention for a starting spot. So has Ryan Hanley, who is playing offensive tackle for the Lights.

Northern is also seeing the positive impact of some fresh faces on defense and one player that has the coaches excited is T.J. Gasetotot, a redshirt freshman. Another redshirt freshman linebacker who is turning some heads is Salesi Koloamatangi, who came to the Lights as a defensive lineman.

“You look forward to seeing those younger guys and those redshirt freshman contributing,” Christensen said. “And we have some guys that we are excited about.”

The Lights have been going at in spring camp for more than two weeks now and Tuesday night at the MSU-N practice field, the Lights held their most active scrimmage of the season.

While it was not actually a scrimmage, the offense and defense played against each other in live action for an extended period of time. Coaches even simulated down and distance and other game situations.

The Lights have been practicing three or four times a week and will continue to do so until the 2016 Spring Game, which will take place April 23 on the campus of MSU-Northern.

“Things so far have gone really well,” Christensen said. “We have gotten a lot of fundamental work in and we are trying to make sure these kids know what they are doing. But we have a lot of competition, I think at almost every position and that’s a good thing. That’s what you want to see.”