As you might expect after three or so months off, the Vandals' first spring session wasn't always crisp. In fact, coach Robb Akey said Idaho could use some WD-40 to knock off all the rust. We have some more thoughts from Akey and offensive coordinator Steve Axman below after Day One of spring practice.

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The Vandals practiced without pads, and they were without offensive lineman Tevita Halaholo, who had a cast on his right hand. Late in practice the Vandals used Matt Cleveland and Tyrone Novikoff at tackles, as well as Clell Hasenbank, Sam Tupua and Guy Reynolds.

"We need four new starters on that offensive line, so there’s going to be a lot of attention put on this this spring," Akey said. "Matt Cleveland did a great job for us. He’s the sole returning starter. I need him to be a leader of that group and push those other guys to compete … so we can get a brick wall built."

Here are some other comments from Akey ...

On getting back to the practice field:

"Awesome to be back on the football field again. I thought our kids had done a nice job over the wintertime in the weight room and conditioning circuit and those things. I like the way they’ve gone about it. And so now we get to work on the football end of the things. And there was a lot of good teaching took place out here today. I like how we went about some things. You know, it was a little rusty being the first practice. It was a first practice in that respect. But I think there was some good carryover in some of the things we’re trying to do.

"The important thing now: We’ve got to do better than the last team here did. This senior group has got to do better than the last senior group did."

On the defense:

"Well, we’re going to improved in defense. We’ve got to be improved in defense. I look at, there’s going to be more competition. We’ve got more numbers in the secondary and at linebacker, so that competition for those shots — that should be a good thing. And competition always leads to better competition on the field. Our bigs guys in the middle are going to be bigger. We’ve got to work on technique and getting them accountable for getting the job done."

On spring practice in general and using extra bowl practices as a springboard:

"What I love about spring ball is that we get to teach our tails off. We can pay attention to making every guy better at his fundamentals, at his technique. That part of playing a game."

"To be able to work with some of those young guys, it has been an advantage to us. And so starting back over with them, they know what we’re talking about because we did that spring ball during the bowl prep. We’ve gained that advantage at this point in time. It should enable us to progress to faster with a lot of technique work."

Steve Axman on Nate Enderle:

"He had phenomenal improvement last year. Realistically, could he have that same improvement this year? That would be unbelievable. I think we’re looking if we can get him making another significant stride, then he’s going to make himself a very, very good quarterback. We’ve already targeted a few things to work on and it’s going to be fun."

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