BOONE, N.C. — Snow still covered part of the track in the sun-blocked end of Kidd Brewer Stadium, but a blue sky and manageable temperature meant an outdoor workout in early February.
Spring practice has officially begun for Appalachian State's football program.
Members of a record-setting senior class are gone, replaced by seven early enrollees from the incoming Class of 2018, and the Mountaineers are looking to build more off the momentum they carried forward from a 9-4 season that ended with a 34-0 victory against Toledo in the Dollar General Bowl.
"It just works out great for us to come out at this time," App State head coach
Scott Satterfield said Monday night. "We jumped right into it today with meetings. For us, it's such a quick turnaround from the time we played our bowl game, and it was a seamless transition, I thought. It was like the guys picked right up, except for the new guys, as we have some new faces out here, but I thought they did some great things."
The 2017 roster had 12 juniors in position to make the spring transition to becoming seniors, with standouts such as
Jalin Moore,
Myquon Stout and
Anthony Flory among the headliners.
App State is returning to the practice field roughly six weeks after it shut out Toledo's high-powered offense in Mobile, Ala. There has been some offseason reshuffling on Satterfield's coaching staff, and experienced players are learning how to evolve as senior leaders, especially with a large group of newcomers already on campus.
"The theme is all about leadership this offseason," Satterfield said.
The list of departures includes quarterback
Taylor Lamb, a four-year starter who helped lead App State to 36 wins during its highly successful FCS-to-FBS transition.
Zac Thomas and
Jacob Huesman are both entering their third years in the program after appearing in a combined six games as redshirt freshmen.
Peyton Derrick didn't see any game action as a true freshman, and one of the early enrollees is 6-foot-5 quarterback
Stephon Brown from Kernersville.
"I thought Zac and Jacob both came on strong at the end of the season last year," Satterfield said. "Today, they came out and picked up right where they left off. I feel really good about both of those guys. The other guys are young with Peyton and Steph as the newcomers. They're out here trying to learn all the nuances."
Defensively, App State has a new coordinator in
Bryan Brown as it moves ahead without three of four starting linebackers and two starting defensive ends from a team that repeated as Sun Belt Conference champions in 2017. Flory and Stout are back for the front seven, while cornerbacks
Clifton Duck and
Tae Hayes are coming off a season in which they intercepted a combined 10 passes.
With a heavily retweeted video clip showing his one-handed skills as a goal line receiver, Duck has been lobbying Satterfield in a good-natured way for the chance to play some offense, but there weren't too many surprises during the first practice of 2018. Staples that have made the Mountaineers successful remained focal points.
"As always, for us, you want to come out here with a great attitude and play with a lot of effort," Satterfield said. "I think we saw that today. We've got a lot of young faces out there, and that's fine. Particularly in the spring, you want to get a lot of reps out of a lot of players. For the first day coming out here, it was a lot of energy."
