POCATELLO — Tuesday was the first day that Idaho State resumed spring football practice after a week off for spring break.

And it showed.

“It’s always a little funky to have spring break right in the middle (of spring football) because we’re dealing with 18- to 21-year-old boys and you send them out on spring break for a week and guess what — they’re going to forget everything you taught the two weeks before,” said new ISU defensive coordinator Grant Duff.

Duff was only kidding about the Bengals forgetting “everything” they learned the first two weeks of spring ball — but not entirely.

“As much as we want to believe they’re robots – ‘Oh you learned this and you should remember this’ – that’s not human nature,” said Duff, who joined the Bengals this spring after coaching at Weber State for 11 years, finishing his service as co-defensive coordinator. “But the first two weeks went well. Today, we’re kicking off the rust a little bit.”

For Duff and his staff, spring is all about learning and retaining, as he incorporates his new system. So far, he’s happy with the way his players are picking up the concepts.

“I’m very encouraged by the desire to learn of our players currently,” said Duff. “They’re sponges, they want to soak it up, they want to be good. It excites them to have that challenge of learning.”

Duff describes his base defense as a four-man defensive front, with his secondary playing primarily man coverage and some cover three zone. That’s in contrast with the scheme employed by Josh Runda, the previous defensive coordinator, which was a 3-3-5 look. But don’t expect Duff to be married to one approach.

“Before, when we were in a 3-3-5, we kind of just did a lot of the same stuff,” said Junior Damuni, a senior who has moved from safety to linebacker under Duff’s new scheme. “And teams kind of picked up on that and were able to have a pretty good plan against us and know what we wanted to do. With this scheme, I feel like you can do anything out of it. We have a lot of different packages and under coach Duff, it’s been very good. He’s very knowledgeable.”

Based on his first couple of weeks with the Bengals, Duff feels like he's got enough manpower on the defensive side of the football to be competitive when the 2025 season kicks off Aug. 30 in Cedar City, Utah, against Southern Utah.

“Time will tell,” he said. “That’s the worst part about pre-season stuff, everybody asks you how good you’re going to be. If I had a crystal ball, I’d share it with you. I’d never make a mistake. I do think, though, we have some pieces in place to have multiple all-conference players. I think we have a handful of guys I’m really optimistic about. Now if you’re going to have a Big Sky championship, leading the conference in defense, you’re probably going to have one or two NFL guys. Do we have those yet? There’s no way I can tell. It’s too early.”

For Damuni, one of those potential all-conference players on the defensive side of the football is fellow linebacker Teilor Tuioti, a graduate student who appeared in three games last season before being sidelined by injury.

“He’s probably the smartest player I’ve ever played with,” Damuni said. “He’s been doing super well this spring. He picks up the defense super fast and he’s been playing really well.”

Joining Tuioti on Duff’s list of potential all-conference performers are defensive tackle Colin Lewis, a junior college transfer from Snow College, defensive end Maka Tu’Akoi, a senior who played in four games last year after transferring from Utah State, linebacker Cam Willis, a transfer from Davidson, and returning starters Nate Reynolds at linebacker and Mason Young at safety.

“It’s encouraging to see that at each level of the defense, there are some dudes that you can tell, ‘Hey, we can hang our hat on him,’” said Duff. “So now we’ve just got to keep taking the steps they need to become the elite players I know they can be.”

On the offensive side of the football, Bengal head coach Cody Hawkins is busy overseeing the competition for the No. 1 quarterback position vacated by the departure of last year’s starter Kobe Tracy. Right now, senior Jordan Cooke and redshirt sophomore Jackson Sharman are leading that race, with junior college transfer Logan Gonzalez and returning squad members Davis Harsin and Brett Spencer in the mix as well.

“It’s been interesting to throw Logan (Gonzalez) into the mix a little bit just because he sees things well,” said Hawkins. “He’s talented and has thrown for a lot of yards in college. I think Davis Harsin does a lot of things intangibly well that push the rest of the guys. Brett Spencer has been the guy who has kind of stepped into the Hunter Hayes role. He can do it all. He can take snaps at quarterback and he’s probably a little more athletic than Hunter. So he’ll do more stuff where he’ll play receiver and tailback and wide receiver.”

But right now, Hawkins said the starting quarterback job is basically a two-man battle between Cooke and Sharman.

“They just have to keep fighting to be consistent and be the guy,” said Hawkins. “We’re trying to get as many play it situations where we can get a look at real football and real game management situations to see how they do. I’d say Jackson and Jordan are out front, but Davis and Logan are close in behind them and Brett will have a role no matter what we do.”

Whoever plays quarterback will have to develop a relationship with two new top receivers after the Bengals lost all-conference wideouts Jeff Weimer and Christian Fredricksen from last year’s squad.

Mike Shulikov and Tsion Nunnelly both saw plenty of action as secondary targets last season and they will be expected to step up to be the top options this season at the outside receiver spots.

“They both have things they need to improve on,” said Hawkins. “But they both have superpowers that weren’t really present in that room last year. I think Tsion is so fast and strong, and Mike is just such a huge, massive target with elite, elite hands. They’re not necessarily the route runners or have the consistency. Jeff (Weimer) was a great route runner and Christian was probably the most consistent player I’ve ever been around. But they (Shulikov and Nunnelly) both do really good stuff.”

Incumbents Julian Mason, Aiden Garcia, Raiden Brown and Damion Morgan and transfer Jonah Burton are expected to compete for time at the slot receiver positions.

Hawkins had to fend off an effort by Montana in the off-season to steal offensive line coach John Hughes, who patched together one of the best pass protecting offensive lines in the conference last season, despite a spate of injuries throughout the year.

“Coach Hughes has done an unbelievable job,” Hawkins said. “I appreciate the administration fighting to keep him here in the off-season, which was big for us. That offensive line, you know you’ve got to develop offensive linemen, you can’t recruit them. You’ve got to have substance to your training and your culture, and you’ve got to support them like a college football team — and we have done that. I think our offensive line is probably the strength of the team right now.”

After the loss of some 30 seniors, including longtime leaders like Hayes, Cortland Horton, David Rowe and Fredricksen, Hawkins is watching as this year’s team develops what he calls, “the first wave of new leaders.”

He says the linebacker Reynolds and offensive lineman Stryker Rasheed have stepped up to take on those new leadership roles.

“Nate Reynolds and Stryker have kind of taken the bull by the horns, so to speak, as guys who can walk the walk and talk the talk,” said Hawkins. “They’re all-conference caliber players and they’re elite workers and that’s what you want.”

The Bengals will conclude their spring workouts with a scrimmage game on April 12 at 2 p.m. in the ICCU Dome. Admission is free and food trucks will be available on the north side of the dome to provide hospitality pregame in the parking lot.

Hawkins said his goal is to raise the stakes a bit for his players as they perform in front of their friends, family and the community.

“I think more than anything, you want to make it fun,” Hawkins said. “Because we’re playing enough football, we’ve trained so much and so well, that we’re going to go live and do enough situational stuff that we’ll get plenty of football in. I think if anything, it’s seeing if guys can do it with their girlfriends in the stands, can guys do it when their neighbor’s there, yelling their name. Trying to create the elements of outside pressure that are present in a game-day situation.”

For Duff, meanwhile, the No. 1 goal is to emerge from spring healthy, while giving younger players more exposure to game situations.

“It’s that crazy fine line of we’ve got to be better in a sport that’s meant to beat you up and wear you out,” said Duff. “We’ve got to stay healthy when the essence of the sport is not to keep you healthy. We’re trying to balance that as best we can, trying to be wise and prudent. Sometimes you’ve got to hold some of your veteran guys who have played a lot of ball, you hold them back a little. Your young guys, you ride them a little harder.”