KEARNEY, Neb. — One practice is complete and one thing is clear about the Lopers under the new administration: nobody is holding still during the Ryan Held era.

UNK’s new head coach stressed movement at Wednesday’s spring practice opener. 

“We gotta have our transitions fast, moving in between whatever the situation is, getting on and off the field, communicating, seeing the signal, all that kind of stuff," Held said. "That was day one, we’ll need to be better on Friday but it was good to get it off the ground.”

Turnovers equal sprints for the offense… and apparently, the head coach.

“Well, I’m tired because I had to run after practice,” Held said.

“Honestly, I didn’t expect him to do that. We had the turnovers, we run for turnovers now, that’s one of the things we want to put an emphasis on," senior TJ Davis said. "We can’t turn the ball over. It’s cool to see him running with us, for sure.”

Sixth-year quarterback TJ Davis says it wasn’t difficult to decide to stay in Kearney for his final season because he loves the city and his teammates. It helped that his first conversations with his new coach weren’t all about football.

“At one point you have to understand that it’s just not about football, it’s about person to person. He made that statement right off the bat and I definitely like that,” Davis said.

Davis says the team has quickly found its focus this spring.

“Get better. That’s all we can do right now," Davis said. "We’re going against each other, new schemes, new offense, a whole lot of new things. I think the best thing we can do is just continue to get better and better ourselves as we go into the offseason.”

Held wants his team to understand its discipline, detailed, tough identity, be able to execute its base plays and get special teams off the ground.

“I’m excited to go watch the film just to see what we can get better at,” Held said.

The Lopers have 14 practices left this spring.