Mississippi State Opens Spring Football Practice
| Coach Croom evaluates the Bulldogs Wednesday during the first day of MSU's 2004 spring football practice schedule. |
STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Mississippi State opened its first spring football practice period under the direction of new head football coach Sylvester Croom on Wednesday, a two and one-half hour workout on the practice fields at the Shira Athletic Complex.
Despite spirited work throughout by his team, the Bulldog head coach was less than impressed following the first practice.
"We have an awful lot of work to do," Croom said. "It wasn't bad for a first practice, but it was only average at best, and average isn't good enough. I thought the defense ran to the ball well, but the offense put it on the ground too much. We have to pay more attention to the fundamentals."
The entire Bulldog squad was on the field for the first workout, but four players were limited while recovering from injury or restricted from action all together.
Wide receiver Ray Ray Bivines (Gautier, Miss.) was the only player who saw no duty whatsoever. He is still recovering from off-season hamstring surgery and has not yet been cleared to run. Tight end Eric Butler (Moss Point, Miss.), quarterback Kyle York (Spring, Texas), and cornerback David Heard (Vicksburg, Miss.) are all rebounding from shoulder surgery and were held out of some aspects of practice.