By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – The looks on the faces of the Tennessee Tech football team on Tuesday morning said it all.

They were excited to be out there on the Tucker Stadium turf, starting their second spring practice schedule under the direction of head coach Dewayne Alexander.

There were smiles and yells of support and recognition. The team was building itself up by building up one another.

2018 is a distant memory. 2019 is now and the Golden Eagles embraced that. It's a new start and Tech football was determined to get it off on the right foot.

"It wasn't a good day, it wasn't a great day, it was an awesome day," Alexander said. "I was very pleased with today. I was pleased with the energy. There are three things we want to ask ourselves after every practice or in the weight room – did we encourage someone today, were we focused today, and did we compete today? I saw evidence of all three of those things today.

"I saw guys focused to the details that we asked them to do with a lot of fundamentals, a lot of teaching out here. During spring practice, you have to be focused and locked in. The attention to detail was very, very good. The energy was positive – guys wanted to be coached. The coaches were well-organized and detailed in what they were doing."

The biggest aspect was that the players, even in the first day, were pushing themselves to be better.

"I saw guys competing in drills – you don't have to line up against somebody to competed, you can compete against yourself whether it's in a ball-handling drill or an offensive line or linebacker drill," Alexander said. "You are competing to get better. We did that in every drill and I heard a lot of positive comments today. 'Great job,' 'nice job,' – those are all encouraging things. As a team, we're doing what we're supposed to, so I was very pleased with today's practice."

Coaches, regardless of the sport, always talk about how contagious attitudes can be. The positive demeanor the Golden Eagles employed on Tuesday spread fast, from the first stretches to the final drills of the day.

"Football should be fun," Alexander said. "This is fun. This is a game and it should be that way. We used the word 'gratitude' in our team meeting. Just be grateful every day. We are so blessed and lucky to play college football and the coaches to get to coach it. That enjoyment should show every day. Sure, there's a lot of hard work into it, but there should be some positives.

"You look at the smiles on these guys' faces out here as they're leaving practice – that's the way it ought to look after a practice. We're doing something that is fun, doing it together and I want these guys to enjoy it. It just makes sense – anything that you enjoy, you're going to get a lot more out of and work a whole lot harder at it. Hard work doesn't come without enthusiasm. John Wooden believed that. Mother Teresa believed that. It takes some enthusiasm – true love for what you're doing – to work hard."

While spring practice does tend to lean on more fundamental work than typical practice, the team still looked like they were in midseason form.

"It's such a big difference in having our staff here for a whole year," Alexander said. "We had offensive and defensive systems in place and we've tweaked a few things in the offseason, which we needed to, but the base is the same – where they were out on the field, what coach they were with. Last year, we were having to draw diagrams and teach all that.

"Having the staff together goes a long way. We've had a spring together, a whole summer, a whole fall and offseason. We're much further ahead and making the progress it needs to make, so we just need to make sure it continues to do that."

Of course, it's just the beginning of the spring practice slate that runs through the first weekend of April. There's still plenty of goals to accomplish even early on.

"We just want to continue to get better," Alexander said. "We want to see the same thing we saw today. We'll continue to add more each day, not just the fundamentals, but the scheme in what we're doing. Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be geared more toward that. Our morning practices are going to be high energy – we won't be on the field long, but there's a lot of teaching and fundamentals. No contact, no offense vs. defense on those days.

"Now Friday afternoon's practice, we'll put some pads on. Saturday will be a lot of 11-on-11 scrimmage situations. That's kind of what we have in store for the week. The good news is, looking at the 10-day weather forecast, it looks like FINALLY we're getting some spring weather and this rain out of here. We have a plan for Tuesday and Thursday mornings to go inside if we need to. We want to continue to get better and grow as a team, and we got off to a very good start today."

Photo by Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information