Picking Up the Pace of Learning

Everybody needs work. And this spring, everybody is getting more work. By design. With intent.

Adding coaches to the staff made it entirely possible to carry forward the plan, an idea bigger schools had tapped in recently. There are more eyes to see more players, to instruct and correct. The best part, Colorado State's football team is doing twice as much in less time.

They call it two-spotting, and coach Jay Norvell says the team is more than doubling on the investment. While the first-team offense is going up against the defense's second unit on one part of the field, the flip is taking place on another.

"What it does is it basically doubles the acceleration of the number of plays you can get, and you don't have to be on the field as long. We're off the field quicker," Norvell said. "The other thing is we've been doing it this way for a bit, so there's been an acceleration of the understanding. Everybody is getting better. The younger quarterbacks and receivers are getting better, the offensive line is getting better. You just accelerate your knowledge and your skill development."

Norvell sees the long-term benefits which will derive from this model of practice. Inevitably during the season, a team is going to have to dip beyond the two-deep chart to fill a gap due to bumps and bruises and major injuries. Instead of having them get up to speed, the idea is they will already be there, the only thing possibly lacking being the game experience.

It won't be a lack of reps. Those are getting taken care of now in spring camp. They will continue to be taken care of during fall camp as the team starts preparation for the 2025 season. Every team has depth based on bodies. Not every team has depth when it comes to players being ready to play, and Norvell feels his group will be ready to go, and they will develop faster overall.

The players can feel the difference.

"I feel like the big change for me is the way we've changed the practice style, more two-spotting. I feel that's helped me gain confidence," said sophomore running back Jalen Dupree. "As a freshman last year, I didn't get many reps. Now we're getting a ton of reps, and I feel more confident about where I need to be.

"I feel way better running more plays. I'm more confident. I can play where the team needs me. I'm a dirty-work player. Wherever the team needs me, I'll be."

The Rams will need Dupree, and they want him better and ready to fill a bigger role. He didn't break the lineup until the midpoint of the season, but his 25 carries produced 153 yards, and he never had a rush for a loss, scoring a touchdown while averaging 6.1 yards per carry.

There are gaps in the room, and he's being counted on to move up the chart. This being the fourth week of camp, he believes he's well ahead of where he was a season ago, thanks to the extra carries in practice.

As one would guess, the biggest effect is being felt by the Rams on the other side of the ball. The defense lost a host of starters, but more importantly, is under new guidance. Tyson Summers enters as the defensive coordinator, and his system is anything but a slight spin on what was run prior.

It's a system Summers will tell you looks like it has a lot, but not really as it's broken down in parts. But one is connected to another, so he's not rushing through the installation, making sure each step is taken care of before the next is addressed.

With more players taking an active role in practice, the teaching is ahead of pace, and so is the understanding of his aggressive approach to playing defense.

"Coach Summers has done a great job installing this new system. There are a lot of resources here with coaching, and we had the winter where we were sitting down ready to come into spring ball and hit it with our wheels turning," linebacker Owen Long said. "With any new system and new coaches, coordinators, of course there are going to be times where you feel everything is being installed at once, but I think we've done a great job taking in bits and pieces and ultimately reflecting it on the field now.

"Two-spotting, new coaches, all those resources really do result in more output. Just as a player, you get so many more reps than one-spotting with the whole team. It can take a toll on your body, but I would trade it for the amount of reps we get and just the practice to see new situations. Shoot, you end practice with good on good and you one-spot, but you've seen everything on the day."

Some people learn better from a book, some for putting lessons into practice. Long finds the benefits of both trains of learning, saying the time he spends on the whiteboard taking notes learning the what's and why's allow him to go on the field and put them into practice.

Doing so makes him more confident. Doing so allows him to play faster. The defense is new, but instead of fighting the differences, he's dove into them. Just a sophomore, he loves the fact the defense is tailored to those who can make plays, which is the type of linebacker he wants to become.

And with the additions to the coaching staff, it is akin to having that whiteboard on the practice field, too. He said he's never had a question go unanswered, because there is someone there to either help with a correction or clarify what he believes to be true.

Progress. It's what the team is seeking coming off its first bowl appearance in seven seasons. It is what the Rams feel they are seeing from spring camp.

There have been side effects, but unlike the medical commercials people are bombarded with about warnings, the Rams have found positives.

Namely energy. And passion.

"I just think the effort and the tenacity we come out here with, the ability to two-spot – there's no standing on the sideline," Long said. "We're here to play football at the end of the day, and I think we get our money's worth in practice with the two-spot system.

"I think this spring has been a lot of competition, a lot of energy. I think it's awesome to go out there and compete against the offense every day. We want to win every day against them, and they want to win against us, and I think as a whole that makes us a much better team."

It's not just getting the extra reps; it's getting them against the best the other side has to offer. It pushes a person, and both sides of the ball are finding benefits.

Benefits the players believe they are mutually sharing.

"What I like most about the spring is the brotherhood," Dupree said. "The offense and defense are going at it, but at the end of the day, we come together and we're brothers. It's just making everybody better."

Which is the goal of spring. If you can do it twice as quickly, all the better.

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