CORVALLIS -- A football practice happened in Corvallis Friday morning, with Oregon State taking its first steps to naming a 2017 starting quarterback, filling holes along the offensive line and identifying new defensive leaders.

Technically, the workout was the start of "spring" football, even though that actual season is still more than a month away. Only Duke, which began its sessions on Feb. 3, and Illinois, which started Tuesday, returned to the practice fields before the Beavers.

Which brings up this simple question -- why so early?

"It was best for this team, this year," coach Gary Andersen said following Friday's initial session.

"Best" for several reasons, the coach believes.

Andersen wanted a relatively quick turnaround following the 2016 season, hoping players would retain schematic knowledge from a 4-8 campaign that ended with two consecutive victories but no bowl game. The early practice dates allow for more time in the weight room during the spring and summer months. It also gives players more flexibility with their class schedules during the spring term, and the staff all of April to attack the crucial spring recruiting evaluation period.

But the early start did tweak the rest of the Beavers' offseason program.

The winter conditioning portion was reduced from eight weeks to five weeks, with 10 sessions run by the strength and conditioning staff and the other 10 featuring more football-specific work run by the coaches. Head strength coach Evan Simon said the primary goals during his sessions were for players to add back as much muscle size as possible following the holiday break and to up their conditioning through "super-intense" sprinting and change-of-direction drills.

"No matter what we would have done, would they be 100 percent ready for what they're gonna be exposed to in the next 30 days? Probably not," Simon said. "But we wanted to try that approach with an earlier spring ball and see what kind of dividends it showed during practice."

Then, the first summer session will be nearly double in length compared to the previous year -- eight training weeks over a nine-week period -- with strength, power and explosion as the focus. The second summer session, which will last five weeks, will be about maintaining that strength and conditioning, while increasing the "overall work capacity" to prepare for the grind of fall camp and the season.

The Beavers will work through 15 practices between now and and March 18, when the annual spring game will be held at Reser Stadium.

And maybe next year, Andersen will change the timing of spring practice again. After all, this part of the football calendar has started on a different date each year. In 2015, the Beavers began in early March, with a two-week break in the middle. Last year, they started on the first day of the spring quarter in late March.

But for this group, Andersen believed it was best to hold all of "spring" football before actual spring.   

"We're not in game shape right now, nor should we be," Andersen said. "But it's important that we as coaches protect them, and the kids protect each other. They did a great job of that (Friday). They were very excited and handled a very clean practice for Day 1."

-- Gina Mizell | @ginamizell

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