DEKALB, Ill. – The Northern Illinois University football team wrapped up its first week of spring practice turning in their fourth workout of spring this morning, four more practices than they had all last spring.
 
Last season's spring football was ended before it began due to the lockdowns in response to the coronavirus. While the virus is still something to contend with, it has not prevented the Huskies getting back to work on the practice field.
 
It's been 97 days since the Huskies stepped off Rynearson Stadium on Dec. 12, 2020 and took the practice field in the Chessick Center for spring ball. NIU head coach Thomas Hammock feels that short timeframe has helped his young team retain a lot of the positives from the end of the season.
 
"To be honest, I think that was an extremely positive thing because was a short window of a season, very short time off then we jumped right back into it," Hammock said. "I think the carryover effect, we really benefitted from that. What we saw were guys playing their best football at the end of the season. They had a better understanding of what it took, how to play, the speed of the game and that really propelled us into the offseason.
 
"When they went home, we gave them goal weights that we wanted them at," he said. "Everyone came back at their weight and we jumped into the lifts. Our strength staff did a great job. Even talking football, they had a better foundation and I think that short turn around helped us."
 
The Huskies improved as the six-game 2020 season progressed. NIU cut its turnovers in half the final three games of the year and averaged seven points more per game.
 
"We made mistakes early in the season, turning the ball over and different things that we didn't make later in the season," Hammock said. "For us, we have to pick up from that moment. We can't regress. We have to pick up from that point of hey, we were good with ball security, we became a better tackling football team. If we can match those two areas as we move forward, then we can start to implement more scheme things for them to digest."
 
With 72 returnees and nine newcomers, this year's spring ball is vital to the development of the 2021 Huskies.
 
"For our guys, and the development of our football team, it's been critical for us to go through a full offseason of strength and conditioning, 'football school,' in terms of learning the game, studying the game and the things that we didn't do so well during the season," he said. "To go back and watch the tape and guys can grow from, has really allowed our players to have a better understanding of our schemes, our concepts and conceptualize what they need to do to play well."
 
As important as spring ball is to the development of this year's program, it wouldn't have made that much of an impact on last season's squad, as young as it was.
 
"Because we played so many young guys, the lack of a spring was really nullified," Hammock said. "Six months before, those kids were in high school. When you play 10-11 true freshmen there's a maturation process that needs to take place and they're starting to take those strides they needed to. The great thing about last year was they were able to gain valuable game experience that will help them in the long term."
 
Only four practices into spring, Hammock can already see the difference in his squad from the early fall practices.
 
"Obviously, I understood there was going to be some growing pains last year with a young group," Hammock said. "I don't feel that way now. We are night and day ahead of where we were we started practicing in September.
 
"For us, it's about staying healthy, being a master of our fundamentals and techniques, because we know that's going to carry us the longest, and building our offense in a way we can be dynamic and explosive and taking the ball away on defense are things that we've been focused on."
 
The Huskies begin their second week of practice Friday morning. For more information on 2021 NIU spring practices, visit Spring Central 2021 on NIUHuskies.com which will be updated with links to stories, videos and more.
 
-NIU-