Final practice before a spring break interlude, and the defense came out flying.
 
On a day structured to put constant pressure on the offense, head coach Jake Spavital was well aware of which side of the ball was feeling it on day five of spring practice.
 
"The defense had a ton of energy today," said Spavital. "They were bringing it."
 
While the defense had the upper hand in practice, the offensive line took the podium following the two-and-a-half-hour day of drills and work. The group, headlined by new-but-familiar-faced offensive line coach Brian Hamilton, enters the 2022 season with plenty to build on. Mainly experience.
 
The group of Bobcat offensive linemen have a combined 162 career starts at the Division I or II levels. Six of the 15 Bobcats have double-digit starts while two-thirds have at least one career start.
 
Texas State Offensive Line – Career Starts (DI & DII games)

• Richard West: 31 starts
• Kyle Hergel: 29 starts
• Evan Lovell: 26 starts
• Dalton Cooper: 24 starts
• Russell Baker: 20 starts
• Eddie Rivas: 15 starts
• Jaydan Smith: 9 starts
• Silas Robinson: 4 starts
• Alex Costilla: 2 starts
• Kylar Cooks: 2 starts

 
Hergel and Cooper started every game for Texas State in 2021. Baker, meanwhile, missed four games but started in the other eight. Plus, Baker started every game in 2020, along with Cooper.
 
Throw in Richard West, who started 11 games at Division II Texas A&M-Commerce in 2021, Evan Lovell, an 11-game starter a year ago at Rhode Island, and Eddie Rivas, who started 10 games in 2020, and the Bobcats have an experienced group in the trenches ready to go.
 
For Hamilton, that experience is the difference.
 
"When you have a bunch of guys that have played a bunch of ball, the seas are always steady," said Hamilton. "They know where their eyes need to be, and how to get themselves and the running back or quarterback out of trouble."
 
Despite moving from tight ends coach to offensive line coach this season, Hamilton is very familiar with his new group. That's because he wasn't too far from them, from recruiting to on campus to practice drills.
 
"As we recruit as an offensive staff, we all recruit players once we identify a guy we want," said Hamilton. "I was involved with the Richard West recruitment and Kyle Hergel's recruitment and Evan Lovell's recruitment. Like (Coach Spavital) said that the number one thing, if you're going to be successful, (it) is (about) building relationships with people. And so I think we got to skip a lot … in our relationship status from player to coach because we work side by side in drills, and I recruited some of them. Then when you have a bunch of talented guys, they make you look much smarter than you are. So they've done a great job of making me look very, very smart."
 
In addition to Spavital and Hamilton, senior Russell Baker and sophomore Dalton Cooper took questions from the media.
 
Texas State will take a weeklong break before returning to the practice field on March 22.
 

Head coach Jake Spavital
Opening statement from head coach Jake Spavital…
Alright, wrapping up, practice five, you know, a lot of good work a lot of good energy. We've increased the installs, and we've thrown everything at them. (There were) kind of a lot of mental errors today, offensively. But we made this practice today as hard as we possibly could on the offense, just to see how they respond. We went back to the stuff that we were doing at West Virginia and, and we, we had two minute drills and blitz periods, and just to see how they're going to operate under pressure. The defense had a ton of energy today. They were bringing it.
 
That's how you kind of make the money in this game, you know, is putting yourself under extreme pressure. But overall, just the last five practices, I thought, we've made a lot of progress as a team, and still not where we want to be. From playing base downs and everything, I think we're pretty solid. But when you get into the situational downs that we've talked about, where you've got to block and win one-on-one and check and understand what's wrong. That's what we got to keep improving on. And that's what we look to do and improve on when we get back from spring break. I'm fired up for this the squad right now and what they're doing.
 
About new offensive line coach Brian Hamilton…
Coach Hamilton, he's been with me for a little while. I worked with him back in 2016 at Cal and, and has been just such a loyal guy to me and to this program. And the kids have embraced him, they love him. And they play extremely hard for him. Just very pleased with the direction that the offensive line's going especially around Hamilton. I've been on the same page for a long time and ran a lot of these plays together and, and all come from they're really the same background.
 
About sophomore offensive lineman Dalton Cooper…
He's just coming off of a shoulder surgery right now. So he's been kind of limited, and hasn't been going with the team. But that that allows for other guys to get quality reps, you know, because Dalton has been a proven starter. I think he's got 24 starts for us. And I love the demeanor where he's at right now he's out there and encouraging everybody. He's actually going through every walkthrough that he can possibly can do, and he's getting extra work in. I think he's got an extremely bright future as he already has had a pretty good career here. And I looking forward good season from him.
 
About senior offensive lineman Russell Baker…
Russell who is kind of like the Swiss Army knife of offense because he can play any position out there. And right now, we're putting him at center and letting him kind of run around and see what he's capable of doing. And he's actually pretty good at it. But like (Dalton), by the time he ends his career here at Texas State, he'll have almost started every single position at the offensive line from left guard or center or right guard or right tackle. Left tackle is the only one that he hasn't done yet. So it just shows you what he's capable of doing. He doesn't complain about anything. He just shows up, he loves the game. And he fights and you know, played a lot of ball.
 
Like we've kind of mentioned that the o-line are a very experienced group. Like there's a lot of guys that played a lot of games and you have the addition of Richard West and Evan Lovell. I think those guys are going to be other great additions and you're gonna see them competing for starting jobs. Really kind of impressed with with our line in just in terms of the experience and how hard they work on what they're doing. Probably the best that we've had since we've been here. We gotta keep working. We're gonna keep getting better but there's a lot of optimism in that room.
 
About the conditioning of the team, after Thursday's hard practice…
I thought the defense had a really good day today. You know, offense again, it was pretty tough on them, but they responded in a lot of good ways. There's gonna be a lot of great tape to learn from. But I think the conditioning – it's always tough to, to kind of like work into playing shape. The only way you can get into playing shape is you have to play football. And we're repping a ton. I don't even know how many plays we went today, but like of live team reps, it was probably up in the 75, you know, 75 to 85 reps. So there's a ton of reps going on. These guys have no choice but to actually get conditioned because they're repping so much. They're kind of in this good mood right now where they know that they're making each other better.
 
On how the change of offensive line coach to Brian Hamilton changes the offensive line…
It's a little bit different approach, just on the things that we've done well. This team's got a ton of experience, so we know exactly what we can and can't do and what they're capable of doing. We've structured this whole offensive line plan around what they're capable of doing at a high level. Man, it's the, it's the hardest thing to do is get five guys to be on the same page, just how they have to step and communicate and, and they have to do it as one, you know, and that's hard to do. The more you simplify it, the better it's gonna be, and we kind of looked at the direction that we want to go as an offense. I've had a ton of conversations of what we want to do (with Coach Hamilton). He understands it's very similar to what we've always done in the past. We're tweaking little things, like wider splits and just kind of kind of messing with some things right now just to see what we can do. But kind of condensing everything down with communication, and just making sure that we can execute at a faster pace, you know, and, and all be on the same page. That's kind of how we're trying to summarize it all up.
 
More about the decision to move Coach Hamilton to the offensive line from tight ends…
Yeah, that was the plan in place from day one. When he came here, Coach Hamilton's had a lot of opportunities to go be o-line coach at other schools, and we know that when we got to this point that he was going to be the guy. I don't even think I actually told him that he was the o-line coach. We just kind of knew that it's the transition and we had these conversations.
 
On Russell Baker moving to center for spring ball…
We've been repping him there a lot. But that goes back to just the consistency of Russell. You know exactly what he's capable of doing. He can do all of it. He doesn't complain about anything. There's been times where he's more comfortable being inside being that guard or center. But he's had to start at right tackle in a lot of games and he doesn't hesitate. He goes out there and does it. I just appreciate the approach that he has because he's a selfless guy. He does anything for the team, and he's gonna go in there and compete and fight and he actually has a sense of humor to himself, too. That's pretty entertaining.
 
 
Offensive line coach Brian Hamilton
On his transition from tight ends coach to offensive line coach…
It's been easy. I have really good players. The coaches that were here before did a good job bringing in good players. As we recruit as an offensive staff, we all recruit players once we identify a guy we want. I was involved with the Richard West recruitment and Kyle Hergel's recruitment and Evan Lovell's recruitment. Like (Coach Spavital) said that the number one thing, if you're going to be successful, (it) is (about) building relationships with people. And so I think we got to skip a lot and skip ahead and our relationship status from player to coach because we work side by side and drills and I recruited some of them and then when you have a bunch of talented guys, they make you look much smarter than you are. So they've done a great job of making me look very, very smart.
 
On the opportunity of being the offensive line coach…
I don't vie for a job. I go out and I do the best work that I can possibly do every day. And then it's up to the people in charge of whether or not they want me for that position. Like (Coach Spavital) said, I've been offered in multiple FBS offensive line jobs. But you know, I believe in this place, and I believe in Coach Spavital. This was the opportunity that I really wanted. I know it's a cliche when coaches say, 'Oh, it's my dream job.' When I met that man (Coach Spavital) in 2016, I said I wanted to be his offensive line coach someday. I think he's an exceptional leader. I think he's an exceptional play caller. And I don't think that there are a lot of those in the world. So I'm humbled to be his offensive line. I'm humbled to be Texas State's offensive line coach.
 
About working with the offensive line so far…
We've got so many guys that have played in games that I get to do a lot of detail work. Our defense – we're gonna see four to five unique looks every day. And so what we're working on is number one, like (Coach Spavital) said, we need to have a home base in the run game. We need to have a run, the coach says, I can call this versus anything and they know it. So that's really been what we've worked hardest on is to say, okay, versus this, look, these are our run points. These are our rules versus run point, versus run call. These are points. And these are rules. And like I said, it's a unique position, because you've got to get five guys to see something the exact same way. Or just trust the guy making the call in order to see it for him. So that's what we're really working on, you know, as if you know where your eyes to be. And you know how your feet have to get there, you've got a chance for making the play.
 
On what it is like to have so much experience on the offensive line…
It's most important thing on earth. So offensive line is a hardest position, right? You've got multiple fronts, and those fronts change, snap, and gone are the days where a defense would line up in a four to five stack, and they'd stand there and let you block there as they're done with that, right? They're gonna move. They're going to shift. And so the more football they see, right, the more it looks like something else that they remember. So we all learn because you build an attachment from something you notice something that you want to know, right? My guys have so many strings attached to things that they've seen in the past, where it's almost unspoken. So when the defender goes from lining up here on second and short to lining up here on second and short, they know contextually that something is about to happen. And they have a pretty good idea.
 
The thing with offensive line plays is the experience of seeing and experience a feeling. And you watch my guy's eyes. And when they see movement, their eyes snap, and they know exactly where it's coming from. Whereas with young offensive lineman, right, we still have some of those guys, right when that target moves. It's freak out time, you know what I'm saying? It's apparent, everything's growing. But when you have a bunch of guys that have played a bunch of ball, the seas are always steady. They know where their eyes need to be, and how to get themselves in the running back or quarterback out of trouble.
 
About the newcomers…
Richard West may be one of the most dangerous players I've ever seen in my life. He's extremely fast. He's really twitchy. Richard West was like a 215 pound baseball player. When you take athletes, and then you grow them, they become really, really dangerous. Richard West has electric hands when he gets his hands on you. They're gonna stay on you. He's able to adjust his feet. Evan Lovell is a moving refrigerator. If it's in his path, he's going to knock it over. So they've been phenomenal additions to the team. They're great people. I really enjoy getting to work with those guys, and they're going to make significant contributions this year.