Video: Mississippi State Completes First Practice of 2016 Preseason Camp

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI/MSU Athletics) – Overcast skies greeted the Mississippi State football team for its for official practice of preseason camp as the Bulldogs worked out for just over two hours on Tuesday afternoon at the Leo Seal Jr. Football Complex.

It was the first of 29 practices leading up to the Sept. 3 season-opener against South Alabama. MSU spent Tuesday in shorts and helmets with its usual uptempo style and will do so again on Wednesday and Thursday. Saturday calls for the first full pads practice. All practices are closed to the public.

“Our practices are intense,” said MSU head coach Dan Mullen. “We are uptempo practices and that’s what we do. I expect guys moving around, flying around, but I think everyone did well. There is the transitioning obviously because as much as you want to, you cannot simulate football practice and workouts. They are just different. I think one of the things is getting them transitioned. Today was probably a harder day because it’s like wow, this is the first time I’m running this way; run, stop, and back to the play, run the next play.”

A welcome sight on the field Tuesday were wide receivers Fred Ross and Donald Gray. Both missed the majority of the spring due to injuries for precautionary reasons. Both are primed for big seasons. They were joined by several new faces in the receiver corps, including 6-foot-4 freshman Reginald Todd and 6-foot-4 Jamal Couch.

“I have a pretty good feeling what he can do,” Mullen said of Ross. “I am not in as much of the evaluation mode as we are with some of the other players. We will just keep managing. The great thing with some of the older players, like he is, when you lay out what the plan is before practice on rep count, and all of the other things that are going on the players know it, the coaches, trainers know it and he knows it. As an older player it is easier for him to follow.”

Of the 105 roster, 22 players went through their first official collegiate practice, including local Starkville product defensive lineman Kobe Jones.